IBIA

In an effort to prevent jail deaths, Arlington County, Virginia’s new sheriff is introducing the use of wristbands equipped with biometric sensors for inmates. Sheriff Jose Quiroz, who succeeded Sheriff Beth Arthur when she retired Jan. 6, said the new technology will supplement the current 15-minute health and wellness checks of inmates, conducted by sheriff’s deputies in the Arlington County Jail. “By implementing biosensors that continuously monitor heart rate, motion and are able to detect risks to health and safety, jail staff will be instantly notified of a medical emergency and be able to respond quickly,” according to a news release from Quiroz’s campaign.

It's disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that the most commonly used password on the internet is "password," followed by "123456," according to research conducted by NordPass. Passwords have always created something of a paradox: A simple code might be easily guessed or hacked, but a complex one is harder to remember. Now, tech companies are championing new "PassKey" technology, which utilizes biometric data in lieu of passwords, as the future of cybersecurity. But what exactly separates PassKeys and passwords? According to Ieva Soblickaite, chief product officer at NordPass, traditional passwords are stored in at least two locations; your head, and the servers of the vendor where you've set up an account. These servers are often hacked, and your password can easily be exposed, leaving you vulnerable to cyberattacks.

You are not alone. Review websites resound with the ire of NatWest customers locked out of their accounts because the facial recognition technology does not recognise their faces. It is, of course, a good thing that banks are stepping up security to prevent fraud, although facial recognition software is controversial, and other banks seem to have introduced biometrics without such hitches. NatWest evidently needs to do some work on its datasets to prevent customers being cancelled because their face doesn’t fit. It seems that hooded eyes and glasses can befuddle the algorithms, which would explain the preponderance of laments from older customers.

Two woman have found their exact look-alikes thanks to facial recognition software, leaving even their parents wondering if they are related. Ambra and Jennifer look so alike that Jessica's mother asked if she was adopted, but the two women are completely unrelated. The pair had never even met before a website matched them as identical strangers with twin faces. Ambra from North Carolina and Jennifer from Texas met through the online platform called Twin Strangers, which helps people find others who look just like them. Users put in their facial dimensions and the algorithm searches for others with similar faces. It is unusual for such an exact match however and Ambra and Jennifer, who were 23 and 33 at the time, were featured on an episode of Twin Strangers.

Last year, Richardson and his team coined a concept called digital fingerprinting. Following a series of high-profile attacks in February 2022, he devised a simple but ambitious idea for implementing it. He shared his vision with his two tech leads, telling them he wanted to create a deep-learning model for every account, server, application, and device on the network. The models would learn individual behavior patterns and notify security staff when an account acted uncharacteristically. At the time, GPUs were not utilized for security, which would be computationally challenging. Using NVIDIA Morpheus, an AI security software library, a proof-of-concept was built and two months later the team optimized each portion of the project. Security operations and product security teams reviewed the work, and by October, the solution, security software for AI-powered digital fingerprinting, was ready to deploy across NVIDIA’s global network.

Judge Blasts James Dolan’s Facial Recognition Bans From MSG: ‘Stupidest Thing Ever (NYPost, Jan 19, 2023)
A powerful judge blasted James Dolan’s bizarre ban on his legal enemies from Knicks games as “totally crazy” and “the stupidest thing ever,” but the billionaire nevertheless stepped up the controversial clampdown just days later, court papers reveal. The mercurial media mogul — who reportedly has used creepy facial-recognition software to bar unwelcome attorneys and critics from entering Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall — took heat in early November over the high-tech tactics from Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick, according to little-noticed court papers. Judge McCormick — who made headlines last fall for forcing Tesla tycoon Elon Musk to follow through with his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter — ridiculed a June 24 letter from Madison Square Garden that announced the ban, slamming it during a Nov. 2 Zoom hearing as “the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.”