U.S. Customs and Border Protection Is Now Cracking Down on Employees With a $9 Million Tech Upgrade: Fingerprints
(TheTravel, Mar 13, 2026)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is seeking a single vendor to run a nationwide electronic fingerprinting program for employees, contractors, consultants, and applicants, supporting hiring, routine background investigations, and reinvestigations with end-to-end capture sites, trained staff, digital transmission, and web-based tracking. The proposed five-year effort (June 24, 2026–June 23, 2031) is budgeted at up to $9 million and is designed for rapid, high-volume processing—potentially requiring thousands of fingerprint submissions in a single day.
Fears Starmer’s Digital ID Cards Could Be Used as Facial Recognition Database for Police Mugshots
(Daily Mail, Mar 12, 2026)
UK digital ID proposals would store a high-resolution facial image as part of a reusable identity credential, and privacy groups warn that law-enforcement access could turn ID photos into a population-scale facial recognition gallery. The consultation language is being read as signaling that police facial recognition could draw on government-held biometric data under a new or clarified legal framework, intensifying scrutiny around purpose limitation, consent, and safeguards against function creep.
Grandmother Jailed for 6 Months After AI Error Linked Her to a Crime in a State She Had Never Even Visited, Lawyers Say
(The Independent, Mar 13, 2026)
A Fargo police investigation used facial recognition to generate a candidate match from bank surveillance imagery, leading to the arrest and extradition of Tennessee resident Angela Lipps on identity-theft and fraud charges for crimes in North Dakota. Bank and transaction records later showed she was in Tennessee at the time, and prosecutors dismissed the case after she spent nearly six months jailed, underscoring the high-stakes risk of treating biometric face matches as identity confirmation without robust corroboration and error-correction safeguards.
Human Rights Commission Urges Review of Mandatory Facial Recognition
(The Chosunilbo, Mar 13, 2026)
South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission urged the Ministry of Science and ICT to reconsider a policy that would make facial recognition mandatory for opening new mobile phone subscriptions and to prepare alternative authentication methods. The Commission warned that forcing biometric face checks for essential mobile access could undermine informational self-determination and chill rights tied to communication and expression, intensifying scrutiny of biometric proportionality and governance for everyday services.
Using Biometrics and AI to Analyze Emotions in Negotiations and Presentations
(TecScience, Mar 12, 2026)
EGADE Business School researchers are combining wearable biometrics (e.g., heart rate, temperature/perspiration signals, and brain-activity headbands) with AI to pinpoint moments of stress and cognitive load during negotiation simulations and executive presentations. Students receive AI-generated reports that map physiological “tension peaks” to specific questions or interactions, aiming to improve emotional regulation, communication, and decision-making under pressure—and eventually to build predictive models of responses in high-stakes scenarios.
