The Discussion: Biometrics: The Rights And The Responsibilities #23
Aug 16, 2023
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Guests Andrew Bud, Founder and CEO of iProov, and Bronwyn Williams, a futurist and economist, discuss biometric face verification, the advantages of face biometrics, the potential issues with a centralized global infrastructure for digital identities, the rise of digital injection attacks, the responsibility of using biometrics to deliver human rights, generative AI and identity manipulation, building trust frameworks for digital identity, and the implications of quantifying and managing things.
iProov uses advanced face matching technology, known as 'flashmark technology,' to verify the genuine presence of remote users and distinguish live human faces from deepfakes.
Digital injection attacks pose a significant threat to biometric identity verification, and preventing such attacks is crucial to maintaining trust in the digital economy.
Finding the balance between decentralized systems and centralized governance is essential in shaping the future of digital identity and its impact on economies, politics, and individual liberties.
Deep dives
The Role of iProve in Biometric Face Verification
iProve, led by founder and CEO Andrew Bud, specializes in ensuring the genuine presence of remote online users during identity verification processes. Their goal is to establish trust in these remote users and confirm their authenticity. They achieve this by verifying that the user is a real person in real-time, using advanced face matching technology that has significantly improved over the past decade. However, the challenge lies in detecting forgery attempts, such as using photographs or masks, and ensuring that the person in front of the camera is indeed genuine. iProve uses unique and unpredictable sequences of colors flashed on the user's device screen to illuminate their face, capturing the reflections of screen light on their skin and utilizing this information to distinguish a live and three-dimensional human face from synthetic generative AI deepfakes. This method, known as the 'flashmark technology,' is highly secure and inclusive, as it is easy for users to perform without complex instructions.
The Growing Threat of Digital Injection Attacks
Digital injection attacks have recently emerged as a significant threat in the field of biometric identity verification. These attacks involve injecting realistic synthetic images directly into the data stream of a local app and the cloud. Traditional methods of preventing injection attacks, such as blocking virtual webcams, have become ineffective due to the rise in the use of device emulators, particularly on mobile devices. Emulators bypass the existing prevention techniques, enabling attackers to inject perfect, indistinguishable imagery for fraudulent purposes. The consequences of successful digital injection attacks can be severe, ranging from the creation of fake user accounts for money laundering to supporting organized crime or even sanctioned states' activities. As generative AI technology advances, detecting and distinguishing between genuine and synthetic digital identities becomes increasingly challenging. Ensuring genuine presence assurance and preventing such attacks will be crucial to maintaining trust in the digital economy.
The Importance of Digital Identity and its Future Implications
Digital identity plays a vital role in the current and future digital landscape, not only for verifying user credentials but also for establishing trust and enabling secure interactions in the online world. The concept of verifiable credentials and decentralized identity is gaining momentum, offering solutions to privacy concerns and self-sovereignty. The World Coin project exemplifies the effort to combine digital identity with biometric verification, aiming to provide a unique digital identity for every individual. By bridging the gap between the real and digital worlds, World Coin consolidates multiple fragmented digital identities into one, allowing for easier management and improving access to goods, services, and opportunities. However, the centralization of control raises concerns around privacy, security, and potential abuse of power. Finding the balance between decentralized systems and centralized governance will be crucial in shaping the future of digital identity and its impact on economies, politics, and individual liberties.
The dangers of true anonymity and the need for accountability
True anonymity is seen as socially dangerous as it absolves people of responsibility for their actions, leading to a lack of accountability. The speaker highlights the importance of holding individuals accountable to prevent crimes and promote societal justice. While there is a distinction between pseudonymity and anonymity, the speaker emphasizes the need for a trust framework that balances identity protection and the possibility of revealing identities under certain governance processes.
The importance of inclusivity in digital identity solutions
The discussion touches on the importance of inclusivity in digital identity solutions. It is crucial to ensure that digital identity systems work on various devices, including low-cost smartphones, and do not exclude individuals based on their economic status. Additionally, the speaker emphasizes the need to address biases not only related to skin tone but also age, gender, cognitive ability, and wealth. Building solutions that do not discriminate and provide equal access to digital identity is a significant challenge that should be prioritized.
In this episode of The Discussion I speak to Andrew Bud, Founder and CEO of iProov, the world leader in biometric face verification. We discuss the importance of keeping ahead of security in biometrics, the advantages of face biometrics over the iris or palm - and what he thinks about the future of anonymity.
I also speak with Bronwyn Williams, a futurist and economist based in South Africa. We discuss the issues that could arise from a single company becoming the centralised global infrastructure for digital identities ie Worldcoin’s World ID.
