The top passports for travelling to destinations around the world without a visa have been ranked in a latest study.
The study by Henley & Partners found that Japan ranks the highest for the last 5 years, permitting travel to 193 out of 227 destinations without a mandatory visa. In the positions behind, South Korea and Singapore were ranked joint second where 192 destinations are open to travel to without a visa. Germany and Spain occupied third place and Luxembourg, Italy and Finland also allow non-visa travel.
The Henley Passport Index provides information on 199 passports and 227 places in the world that is opening up to freer travel, especially with eased restrictions. Global travel has resumed to 75% of pre-pandemic levels and the events of the passed 3 years has even led to the term “revenge travel’.
Perhaps unsurprising, it is not easy to travel seamlessly with passports from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, facilitating 12% of travel worldwide and contributing to 1% of the global economy.
Dr. Christian H. Kaelin, Chairman of Henley & Partners who began the Passport Index 20 years ago, said the findings were eye-opening to the “passport power” and what it means for the value of the aviation sector and secure travel documents.
“The Henley Passport Index measures visa-free access to 227 destinations across the world, which of course makes it an extremely useful tool for travellers. However, for global citizens and international businesspeople, a better measure of economic mobility and opportunity afforded by their passports is an indication of what share of the world’s GDP is accessible to them visa-free. Our latest research into how much global economic access each passport provides is a useful tool for investors, in addition to giving new insight into the ever-widening economic inequality and wealth disparity that has come to define our world”.
US and China share the highest levels of GDP with 25% and 19% respectively.
Trained as an engineer with over 20 years of experience in the telecom, banking and now identity industries, Julien Drouet has worked in several highly successful international companies.
1. How can we efficiently secure identity documents against fraud?
As the proven leader in identity technologies, IDEMIA recognizes that document security features are the cornerstone of securing identity. Our vision is clear when it comes to developing our security features portfolio: we build ID documents that are hard to reproduce, but easy to inspect.
Our ID documents are hard to reproduce: each year we invest heavily in R&D to develop innovative security features that will serve this vision. We produce more than 150M ID documents every year (passports, ID cards, driver’s license, etc.) thanks to our extensive expertise, and what we have learned from our customers is that fraudsters mainly target the portrait, as it is the main link between an ID document and its holder. As a consequence, we focus on securing the portrait.
With that in mind, we recently launched LASINK™ 3D, the latest added security feature to our LASINK™ family, which consists of three security features:
– LASINK™ origin: with LASINK™ Origin, the main color portrait of the document’s holder is engraved directly into the polycarbonate structure by a laser during the personalization stage. LASINK™ Origin color photos have a unique linear pattern that acts as a signature to authenticate the document.
– LASINK™ Helios: a polychromatic color portrait integrated in a DOVID. LASINK™ Helios received the award of ‘Best Applied Security Product’ from the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA)
– LASINK™ 3D: a 3D color portrait in a transparent window.
LASINK™ Helios and LASINK™ 3D are secondary portraits of high quality that come reinforce the protection of the primary portrait.
Although the portrait is our highest priority, we have also developed additional security features with moving effects, or what we call a Motion Print. Additionally, we have created features that interlink the data in the document, like steganography, which conceals data within the document. The data can then be decrypted by various devices, such as a mobile phone, when the holder’s identity is checked.
Our documents are widely acknowledged for the high security level they provide. Since 2019, our eID cards in Estonia, Latvia, Morocco and Colombia, have been awarded as best new ID cards by the industry during the High Security Printing conferences.
Our vision also includes innovations to make authentication and inspection of ID documents easier. We are developing security features that can be inspected via automated inspection, through Optical Machine Authentication (OMA) using a scanner or a smartphone. Thus, authentication becomes easier and quicker all while being secure and reliable. Today, LASINK Origin can be authenticated through OMA which opens new use cases for the market. For instance, we can imagine in the near future a fully remote authentication with verification of LASINK™ Origin genuineness, completed by a selfie check.
At IDEMIA, we are truly focused on providing our customers with immediate innovative document security features, while ensuring that we are prepared to meet future digital needs.
2. While physical identity still coincides with digital identity, has the bridge widened as technologies have advanced?
We believe that physical and digital ID complement and complete each other because your digital ID is often derived from your physical ID. At IDEMIA, we strongly believe in an ID ecosystem where the physical and digital ID can co-exist perfectly.
A person’s physical identity has a crucial role when it comes to digital ID issuance. It provides the basis, or Root of Trust, from which identity attributes can be securely derived. For example, a smartphone can be used to both capture and verify a person’s identity so that they can easily use their identity and claim their rights. This is the way in which the physical and digital ID are expected to co-exist and enable a whole suite of secure services for citizens at a cost that is affordable for governments.
In addition to our expertise in physical ID documents, IDEMIA is also working on several digital identity projects. In the United States of America, we have partnered with Departments of Motor Vehicles for more than six years. We are the No. 1 issuer of driver’s licenses in the U.S. and we have also been issuing mobile driver’s licenses for years in Arizona, Delaware, Oklahoma, Mississippi and more. This not only enables law enforcement officers to perform secure and fast ID checks, but also allows for other use cases such as attribute sharing. For example, in the case of age checks at liquor stores, a person can choose to only show their age attribute without having to show all of their personal data.
We are also working on similar projects in Latin America. We are working with the Columbian Government to equip citizens with a new physical identity card alongside a digital extension on smartphones. The new digital ID provides a robust foundation to extend this infrastructure to future use cases. It will allow online authentication services, starting with governmental use cases and expanding to private sector services —such as access to financial services.
With regard to Europe, we are closely following the wallet trend that consists of storing multiple identity documents within your smartphone, an expanding trend thanks to the expected regulation eIDAS II and its interoperable European Mobile ID wallet.
3. How does IDEMIA’s technology contribute to more secure national identity schemes?
The first consideration here is that it is up to governments to decide what and how they want to develop and secure their national identity scheme, and IDEMIA, works directly with governments to help them achieve these goals.
IDway is IDEMIA’s identity management system that securely manages ID credential requests (both physical and digital). It guarantees the delivery of a foundational, legal, trusted identity. The full suite can handle the management of a citizen’s identity from birth and throughout life.
IDEMIA has been deploying ID management systems globally for more than 25 years. To give you one figure, IDEMIA ID systems now serve almost 40% of Latin America’s population.
One of our latest deployments was in Nepal: with a vision of continually developing and modernizing its digital infrastructure, the country is undergoing mass transformation and is evolving fast. As a long-term partner of Nepal, IDEMIA has already been supporting the Nepalese people on this journey by providing national ID cards, an AFIS system and Machine Readable documents.
IDway is a modular solution, meaning that it can be tailored to local needs, existing infrastructure and the needs of governments. Governments can protect their investments as the modularity allows for easier evolution of the systems.
It is also fully compliant with the OSIA standards which enable seamless interoperability. With this open standards approach, governments can be confident that their systems can evolve without compatibility issues in the future.
We developed IDway using a DevSecOps approach, securing the solution at every stage of development. This well-known approach is based on a central multi-biometric engine which ensures the uniqueness of each individual’s identity through a deduplication process.
Moreover, IDEMIA has extensive expertise in biometrics. Our algorithms regularly rank in the top tier in the NIST benchmarks. The latest results from the NIST and DHS has confirmed our leading position in the three main biometrics: face, fingerprints and iris. For example, our technology was ranked first on the False Match Rate (FMR) fairness test among the 100 most accurate algorithms from the NIST, with more than twice the fairness of the 20 most accurate solutions. In India, IDEMIA is a major contributor to the world’s largest biometric-based ID program, “Aadhaar”, and has enabled mass-enrolment of more than 1.3 billion people to date.
IDEMIA is the leader in identity technologies and we are very proud of the innovation and expertise we provide to our government partners.
4. Can you describe some of the most exciting applications you have developed across different sectors in the last few years?
We are particularly proud to be part of the digital transformation of a country, as it also means more inclusion. Thanks to our extensive expertise in identity, both physical and digital, we have recently supported Morocco and Colombia in modernizing their ID ecosystem.
The Kingdom of Morocco is widely recognized for its digitalization. With the aim of increasing efficiency within public services and improve overall citizen satisfaction, they established a strategic plan to digitalize government services.
IDEMIA has provided support throughout this important project, from the supply of state-of-the-art eID cards in 2020 (over 10m card already delivered) to the implementation of an authentication platform for digital services in 2022, and the design of a dedicated smartphone app.
Today, citizens of Morocco can now connect to the platform to access several governmental and private services, using their new eID card. They enjoy easier and more convenient access to online public and private services, but most importantly more secure access thanks to the use of the eID card.
Colombia has also taken major action toward digital transformation of the country. As part of the national digital strategy, the Colombian Government has emphasized a citizen-centric approach and has made the development of remote services a priority. To do so, they decided to go for a coupled approach in which they requested a new national ID card and its derived version on smartphone to co-exist.
As a long-term partner of the National Civil Registry of Colombia (RNEC), IDEMIA was selected to support them in the deployment of this project.
Since 2020, Colombian citizens have had access to a brand-new ID card, made of the most up-to-date security features, and also the ability to have their ID card in their smartphone. With their mobileID, they can easily authenticate online or in-person.
We are also closely following the developments of the European wallet. Our role is to ensure that governments will be able to take advantage of the benefits of a secure and reliable digital ID, and guide them in defining and implementing the right secure digital identity scheme. As the leader in identity technologies, we intend to play a significant part in the ecosystem.
One failing of biometric technology can be attributed to algorithm bias, which can commonly occur due to the immaturity of technologies. This can cause varying match results across different demographic groups.
Whilst the infancy of biometric technologies is one explanation for false match rates, it nonetheless raises some ethical concerns around racial unfairness.
The Racial Justice Network (RJN) is an anti-racism charity that seeks to eliminate all forms of racism in treatment towards black people, and even in technologies that could be interpreted as favouring certain demographics. While biometrics is designed to streamline the user experience, bias in biometric technology has the potential to be a vehicle for discrimination and places both physical and metaphorical barriers in the way of black people.
A specific report on bias in biometric technology tackles the common use of facial recognition in routine policing practices, which raises concerns over privacy and the use of invasive technologies.. It also feeds into an uncomfortable truth about the relationship between the black community and the police, which has long been accused of unfairly treating black people in relation to crimes.
The freedom of the police to use biometric technology at will in investigations exacerbates the “worrying racial disparities we already see in policing”. The reports calls to abolish unacceptable norms in policing to stop and search black people, who may be forced to provide a photograph which is used to find matches on the policing database.
The Facial Recognition (OIFR) App should be used in circumstances when someone cannot confirm their identity because they are deceased or have mental health, age or medical barriers. It is also permitted if the subject refuses requests to provide or provides false information about their identity.
In a study to assess racial and sexist bias in FRT algorithms, the report cities the National Institute of Standards and Technology “analysed 189 facial recognition algorithms submitted by 99 developers” which found that the majority were substantially less likely to correctly identify a Black woman than a member of any other demographic.
The findings of Big Brother Watch (2022) revealed that over 3,000 people were falsely identified by police biometrics, which was 87% inaccurate (2016-2022).
The Racial Justice Network uncovered that South Wales Police was the only police force in England and Wales to pilot use of the facial recognition mobile app (Operation Initiated Facial Recognition) in policing procedures, and worryingly, black people are 4 times more likely to be stopped and scanned than a white person.
(Loyola-Hernández, L., Coleman, C., Wangari-Jones, P. and Carey, J. (2022) #HandsOffOurBiodata: Mobilising against police use of biometric fingerprint and facial recognition technology, the Racial Justice Network and Yorkshire Resists, UK.)
Investment in digital identity needs to be focused on ensuring truly trusted solutions that standout in a saturated U.S. and global market.
The evidence is clear that financial criminals are too investing in more sophisticated means of hacking and stealing identities to compete directly with these technologies.
IdentityWeek.net deconstructs the main points in a commissioned report provided by OliverWyman to tap the potential of digital security.
The most common weaknesses in banking identity management are the consumer-facing vetting processes – identity proofing and KYC which occurs when onboarding a new customer- and the failure to stop crime at the first opportunity when an individual submits login information.
The U.S. market is also oversaturated with digital identity solutions that promise security and seamlessness – an early insight in the report shares the lack of careful authentication barriers before a hacker can transact a payment.
Insight 1.0 – The first verification wall when accessing a bank account is too easily overcome by criminals
“The digital identity landscape is evolving fast; Financial Services institutions need to understand the ecosystem to reap its benefits”, the report reveals.
“The best way to combat synthetic identities is by strengthening up-front verification of credentials when a customer first tries to open an account”.
The stages of authentication are outlined in report, starting with onboarding, customers’ verifying their identity and banks issuing digital credentials, which should be followed by frequent authentication requests to identify genuine account holders.
Finally, the transaction is performed after further authorisation and monitoring.
Insight 2.0 – Market saturation
One striking advancement in hackers’ techniques is demonstrated by the “Fraud Classifier” model, developed by the The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, which how bad actors intent on compromising security will inject themselves into the financial system and thorough verification processes to commit fraud.
The vibrant and competitive landscape, where digital ID providers rank at different levels of competency for inoperability, performance, integrity and privacy, creates a commercial competitiveness instead of offering fewer solutions that perform better for security and user experience.
This provides a hinderance to ultimately defeating criminals that commit fraud, leaving the U.S. digital identity ecosystem in a “state of flux”.
This view is echoed in the report, stating:
“Faster payments, the different roles played by both the U.S. government and private sector, evolution in underlying technologies, and competitive dynamics in the vendor landscape are all impacting the ecosystem”.
Regulators and any bank looking to retain satisfied customers and upgrade safety for the use experience, must first reflect on broader trends including overwhelming market competition and how they may reconfigure the ecosystem and vendors to have long-term relevance.
Insight 3.0 – Government and partners shaping the landscape
“One of the aspects that makes digital identity such a complex topic is the influence of government and quasi-government organizations on the market”.
“A number of forces are shaping the landscape, and this paper helps banks identify those influences in order to design a solution that will remain relevant over time”.
Travel and mobility are key factors in our fast-paced and globalized world. Seamless travel describes concepts that offer a user-friendly and secure travel experience by allowing digitalized processing at borders. However, there are still several challenges to overcome when it comes to its implementation.
By Corinna Schindler*
Over the last few decades, economic crises and critical security situations have repeatedly hit international air traffic and the travel industry. However, customer demand has never collapsed for long. It is therefore not surprising that passenger numbers are already recovering and even increasing following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Against this backdrop, airport operators, airlines, and authorities are facing increasing challenges in terms of the structural organization of air travel. Higher passenger numbers mean a greater need for more efficient and easy processes throughout the entire customer journey. At the same time, safety standards must not be compromised. Seamless travel is one possible solution to these complex challenges. The concept of seamless travel aims to minimize the traveler’s individual touchpoint with controls, check-ins, and physical documents and in its place provide a simplified, convenient travel experience.
Seamless travel: The journey starts in the app
Digitalized travel starts with the planning and organization of a trip. Users can easily book their hotel in just a few clicks, view suitable flights and pay for everything online from the comfort of their home. At their destination, they can easily reserve a rental car, and the corresponding app even takes care of check-in via self-service.
But one component remains physical for the time being: travelers must always carry ID cards or passports with them. In some places, they even still must physically apply for a visa or an entry application for their destination country. In the future, steps such as updating and applying for documents, such as passports, could also be implemented digitally.
However, the most serious obstacles on the road to fully digitized and seamless travel arise at the airport itself.
Contactless through the airport of tomorrow
Individual concepts of seamless travel have been implemented to varying degrees in certain regions. Within the Schengen Area, for example, EU citizens can scan their passports at an e-gate, which is far faster than the manual inspection lines.
However, current concepts and processes are not yet truly contactless. Passengers still need to provide credentials to enter security zones and the aircraft itself, such as in the form of a printed boarding pass or by showing their passport.
So, what would a traveler’s journey look like in an airport that truly embraces seamless travel? After booking online, passengers pass through the arrivals’ hall and, on the way to airport security, walk through a biometric corridor. There, a state-of-the-art camera system verifies the individuals and compares their passport and biometric data with both the information in the database and the passenger list. In this ideal scenario, the entire process takes place while they are on the move, so that travelers don’t even notice the security check. As well as simplifying and speeding up the process, it also eliminates contact points with equipment and direct contact with airport personnel – aspects that have become particularly important since the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, the toolset for identifying fraudulent identity documents has also developed. Even when identification is carried out via automatic biometric methods, manual checks are possible in cases of doubt or irregularities.
Once at the destination, the passenger data is already stored on the system and no additional checks are required. The rental car company will also have received the required information and the booked car will be available without customers having to wait. Immediately, the entire trip becomes less bureaucratic, more convenient and far faster due to reduced waiting times. If optimally implemented, passengers will no longer even be aware that they are passing through the various zones of an airport; instead, they can expect a contactless and seamless travel experience. However, the road to reaching this goal is a long one, full of challenges.
A concept in its infancy
Even if there are concrete ideas about seamless travelling concepts, decisive foundations for their implementation are still missing. What are the reasons for this? In addition to the technical requirements, the main obstacles lie in the need for international cooperation at all levels. While the private sector, especially airlines and airport operators, has already joined forces in umbrella organizations such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) or the International Air Transportation Association (IATA), there are significant challenges of cooperation between government authorities with sovereign tasks.
Travelers’ personal data is a basic prerequisite to realize international seamless travel – both at the point of departure and destination. But the exchange of data between individual countries is not yet uniformly regulated. And even though there are isolated bilateral agreements and corresponding programs for air travelers, for example between the US and Germany, there is a lack of standardization – a problem that certainly cannot be solved in the short term. Such a solution would have to consider a lot of different legal aspects, as well as data protection issues. This shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in this area before a seamless travel concept can be implemented globally.
Different data protection laws in various countries are still an unsolved problem in this regard. Working groups such as the Secure Identity Alliance (SIA) are endeavoring to develop standards for interfaces and system concepts to realize an efficient exchange between countries.
To accelerate respective developments, some airlines and local authorities have already joined forces and offer their customers programs that promise fast processing of entry and exit procedures thanks to stored data. As sensitive personal data is collected here, providers should focus on cyber security, transparent handling and obtaining consent to ensure acceptance from travelers.
A question of technology
In addition, technology still faces some challenges. A biometric corridor that can identify and assign people beyond doubt requires powerful cameras, as well as the appropriate software. Notable innovation under development includes long e-gates that perform biometric identification. The use of a long field of vision is often the preferred method of choice here – capturing compliant images has become increasingly reliable in recent years. However, in a government environment, such as when running security checks, fingerprints are still considered more accurate. Iris identification is one trend attracting attention. This is considered highly secure. However, given the iris’s comparatively small area, high-resolution cameras need to perform the scan while in motion. Although the technology still has some challenges to overcome, iris scanning may prove to be a viable solution in the future.
The self-service offering is an important aspect of modern travel for passengers. The easier and less complicated it is for passengers to submit their personal data in advance, the less waiting time this process will take further down the line. To this end, approaches such as e-kiosks in airports have proved to be highly successful. Here, travelers fill out a questionnaire before their flight, scan their passport and verify their identity using biometric methods – such as facial recognition. Once the data has been successfully collected, they currently receive a printout that is checked by security. This solution, which is particularly widespread in the US, is a step towards simplified travel and offers great potential.
However, even if modern airports implement the latest solutions and enable seamless travel, not all countries are at the same technological level. Airports that cannot implement current technologies will therefore continue to exist in the future and will inevitably limit seamless travel offerings.
Quo vadis, seamless travel?
Many aspects influence the trend towards seamless travel. Automation and digitization are constantly leading to new solutions, for example in the field of touchless biometrics. Contactless biometric verification is not yet accurate enough for governmental standards and verifications, but shows huge potential for the future.
One of the biggest challenges is certainly the interaction between many different parties, especially the different requirements for private and government sectors. While airports and airline operators strive for an increase in digital technology, the security stakeholders don’t want to exclude human checkpoints altogether. Here, the focus is on safe and repeatable execution.
Nevertheless, the trend is clearly moving in the direction of seamless travel, albeit at locally varying speeds and despite the many local and global discussions that remain open. On the way to this goal, it is important to create new standards in international cooperation that enable collaboration between states and airlines and thus ensure the best future travel experience.
* Corinna Schindler is Global Vice President Business Line Verification at Veridos.
IDEMIA, a leader in future-proof identity technologies, has ranked the highest in a new Face Recognition Vendor Test to determine the level of bias that exists using biometric technology across different demographic groups.
IDEMIA’s technology demonstrated an even number of false biometric matches between people from different demographics, proving a low level of bias compared with other providers.
Bias in Biometrics
The test for ‘fairness’ in a technology differs slightly from the term ‘accuracy’, referring to a weakness in biometric technology to detect and match some facial appearances but perform well on other occasions. Technology from all providers can have a high level of accuracy in capturing a live facial image and matching it with photographic data of a person, however still create bias which is known to be caused by a lack of diverse demographic data, bugs, and inconsistencies found in the algorithms.
The technology is not inherently biased or discriminate based on facial appearance – it is the design of biometric technology and algorithms which specialists are still working to enhance to mitigate any “discrimination”.
The collection of training data is often the root cause of bias in technologies. If the data is not sufficient to represent all demographics this can have an impact on live detection accuracy and trust of the user.
“When decisioning is biased, the models are being trained with the wrong data”, says Mitek. Providers like IDEMIA and Mitek have prioritised the collection of balanced and representative data to eliminate potential bias.
Mitigating bias
In conversation with biometricupdate.com, digital identity specialist, Stephen Ritter, Chief Technology Officer at Mitek, explained how the industry by-large was achieving inclusivity with biometrics which is at the touchpoint of being implemented across industry use cases. He argues the point that biometric technologies work a lot of the time to verify users, which 44% of consumers say is “very” or “extremely” effective building their trust in financial services.
He said: “One of the beautiful things about multimodal biometric authentication is that it’s a passive technology; the user is not asked to do anything extra or out of the ordinary”, impacting trust.
The variables considered to affect bias in biometric technologies, and thus impact user trust, are age, gender, ethnic and racial background.
Alexey said: “In terms of identifying transgender people correctly, out of hundreds of millions of authentications, there has not been a single report of our system discriminating against this (Mitek) group. Our effort to build an unbiased system that works in a multi-dimensional environment has been effective”.
IDEMIA’s score
The Idemia-009 algorithm achieved a fourth-best score in the test in the Mugshot, Border Photos and Kiosk Photos categories. To achieve this result, it is clear that IDEMIA invests in quality and fair data sets in the training and testing of its biometric solutions. The score reflected on its company focus to eliminate bias and represent all demographics.
Speaking about IDEMIA’s ranking, CTO Jean-Christophe Fondeur, said: “NIST’s FRVT results are further evidence of the highest standard we have set with our suite of facial recognition technologies, positioning fairness as a key criterion, in addition to accuracy”.
“By being more than twice the fairness of the top 20 most accurate, we continue to lead the industry in terms of social responsibilities. Idemia is paving the way in the ‘battle for fairness’ and I would like to congratulate our teams of experts on their excellent work meeting this priority”.
IDEMIA also ranked highly in the biometric verification accuracy tests, maintaining its position in the top 3 with 99.88% accuracy against a 12 million dataset. IDEMIA secured a top place for single-eye accuracy and first ranking for its one-to-one fingerprint recognition.
Protecting and authenticating security and ID documents presents challenges for holograms but the technology’s capacity to evolve and integrate in the optical and digital space, reflects its continued potency in security applications, says Dr Paul Dunn, chair of the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA).
New optical and digital developments are reshaping the role and nature of holograms in document and ID security. They are also driving innovative and sophisticated design solutions for often non-descript security documents, simultaneously enhancing the security of an identity document, as governments and issuing agencies around the world, as well as other global entities, wrestle with losing billions of dollars a year in revenue through incessant counterfeiting of documents and insidious ID fraud.
Meanwhile the cost of paying for anti-counterfeiting measures to bring criminals to justice can add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. The problem has also been exacerbated in the last two years by the impact of COVID, which has accelerated digital transformation in almost every industry, accompanied by drastic opportunities for increased fraud.
Providing innovative and sophisticated solutions for security documents requires not only a design that will make a document attractive; it also means enhancing the intrinsic security of that document. Secure document conception can be achieved for ID cards and passports, for example, by integrating security features with exclusive designs that highlight attack attempts and facilitate controls such as checking that an ID document matches the bearer.
Today, propelled by advances in materials and applications, holograms designed to protect and authenticate, are integral elements of optical variable elements (OVE) on ID documents, helping to verify identities both in person and remotely.
Ground breaking technologies such as Idemia’s Lasink Helios are to the fore in these applications: its technology is linked to a DOVID (Diffractive Optical Variable Image Device) and combined with holographic technology displays striking optical effects, such as colour variations of the portrait including a full polychromatic view with true colors, which vary depending on the angle of view. Easy to inspect, resistant to multiple types of fraud and durable, the use validates both secondary and main portrait images on documents, thus confirming the identity of the document holder – both images are interlinked to make forgery virtually impossible, deterring any attempted fraud.
Primary protection
The IHMA estimates that there are three billion identity documents issued worldwide, the evolving challenges posed by fraud see governments, issuing authorities and law enforcement turning to innovation to stay ahead of criminals and fraudsters. Here, the use of direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) applied by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology in Germany can be seen as a versatile tool for producing holographic motifs and diffraction-based elements on most materials; the optical security elements can be written directly on the surface as well as in the volume of a transparent material for improved authentication and greater individualisation of security documents.
Conventionally, a DOVID protects the most important information of a document i.e., the primary image of the document holder. It can additionally cover the holder’s data and a secondary image. So conventionally all this information is printed or laser engraved by the manufacturer and protected by DOVIDs. However, rather than simply protecting the information, security solutions provider OVD Kinegram’s novel technology allows for the creation of a secondary image and/or data directly. The laser personalized KINEGRAM is highly secure and protects against ID fraud and document falsification. This three-layer system is laser processed to radically alter their appearance from a black to mirror like effect, or transparent or even eye-catching optical effects.
Besides offering intrinsic protection, the use of two metal layers/effects provides further benefits and protection – both appearances are in perfect registration and thus cannot be copied by unauthorised printing processes. Moreover, the ability to integrate the embedded KINEGRAM elements over a larger area in perfect optical harmony with other features (such as the security print) leads to a document design that is intuitive and self-explanatory, and hence readily available for human inspection. The design tells a story that even the untrained eye can immediately understand, while the solution protects the personalised data and the photograph of the passport’s data page for ID3 format passport data pages and ID1 format identity cards or driving licences.
Today, the use of optical and physical technologies to protect valuable documents against existing and emerging threats is paramount – for instance, the role of optical and digital technologies in securing health status passports is gaining increasing traction – while great strides are being made in the areas of micro and nano-optical structures and other new approaches to document security. Indeed, the future evolution of optical and digital document security is set to play an important role in the transition to digital documentation for some time to come.
New digital NanoCast technology from NanoGrafix enables the online production of variable holograms or any other optical structures on any printing press with the special NanoCast module. Each hologram can be different and have different holographic encrypted information that can be used for authentication and track and trace purposes. This technology can be installed on any existing machinery in order to “print” these holograms or optical structures onto banknotes, security documents such as Tax Stamps, ID documents, etc. With this module security printers no longer need to outsource holograms or any other optical structure. The holograms are instantly produced and can be different from one another. Each banknote or secure document will then have for the first time a unique holographic identifier. No more outsourcing of security features or extra handling and storage of printed materials. In this way, the chances of documents being compromised are reduced while ensuring a readily available supply of ‘instant’ holograms to support global authentication and anti-counterfeiting programmes.
Smartphone technology is also increasingly being used in combination with hologram programmes to facilitate authentication. In this fast-evolving landscape, security features such as holographic foil-stripes that cannot be replicated are being created. This type of technology allows law enforcement and other specialists ‘read’ a document using a smart phone or LED lighting, in the process providing a robust way to authenticate and thwart counterfeiting and forgery.
Pointing the way
The continued use of holography in optical and digital document security points to the technology’s underlying versatility, cost-effectiveness and graphical flexibility. Indeed, it will continue to flourish in those markets where a highly effective security feature is required as governments and other issuers of
ID cards, passports and driving licences have to implement security technologies to protect an increasing array of documents from counterfeiting attacks.
The optical and digital space heralds exciting development opportunities for holograms, which can deliver an exceptional representation of the 3D world and pose a significant step forward in the search for better imaging. The opportunity for further integration by innovative, forward-thinking companies is huge, as digital holographic technology, increasingly operating via smartphones and devices, provide a visceral and ardent interpretation of the world, allowing people to see and sense images in a way that is realistic, comfortable and natural.
Moreover, the use of well-designed and properly deployed authentication solutions, as advocated by the ISO 12931 standard, enables those with ID protection responsibilities to verify the authenticity of a legitimate product, differentiating it from counterfeits. Even those that carry a fake authentication feature can be distinguished from the genuine item if the latter carries a carefully thought-out authentication solution. The advantages holography offers will continue even as digital and mobile ID technologies gain increasing levels of traction.
The IHMA (www.ihma.org) is made up of more than 80 of the world’s leading hologram companies. Members include the leading producers and converters of holograms for banknote security, ID cards and passports, other secure documents, brand protection, packaging, graphics and other commercial applications around the world, and actively cooperate to maintain the highest professional, security and quality standards.
From biometrics and decentralised identity, to identity management, enhanced data and digital ID, Identity Week Europe encapsulated the hottest trends and discussion areas in identity.
But don’t just take our word for it. Compiled in this report are numerous testimonials from speakers and supporters at Identity Week Europe 2022 who shared their predictions for the future of identity domains, as technology advances and enterprise and consumer demands increase.
Across the international marketplace, identity and financial security is among one of most valued reasons for technology advances, enabling citizens to have the ultimate freedom and protection over their personal information. While the west of the world takes strides in securely managing data, developing markets are also looking to change the trajectory of citizen’s lives and boost their economies through digital transformation.
Identity Week Europe 2022 Testimonials
“It’s so hard to pin down what the key trends in the identity industry are currently because there’s so many of them!” – Duncan McIntosh, Product Owner, CIAM, NatWest Group.
“Data’s always been important and it continues to get more important”, says Andy Preston, Head of Compliance Delivery at Entain.
“We’re going in a direction of more decentralisation – it’s good for the privacy perspective – It’s also good from a security perspective” – Uko Sarekanno, Deputy Executive Director for Information Management and Processes ,Frontex, European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
“The future of identity management will rely on a multitude of new biometric modalities that will join the already existing modalities” – Guido Brockmann, Head of Product Management Sector, Eu-Lisa
“In the next 18 months, we will see more and more the digitalisation of documents and, of course, we have the coexistence of physical documents and electronic documents” – Matthias Köhler, Vice President, Mühlbauer
Join our complementary sister event to Identity Week Europe, for the APAC region, which is carefully curated to reflect to happening trends in this identity market.
The Asia Pacific is the fastest growing global region for the identity market, proving itself to be one of the world’s major identity hubs driving innovation and development.
The Asia Pacific digital identity solutions market is anticipated to grow by 21% annually with a total addressable market cap of $148.74 billion over 2020-2030.
Tickets are valid for 2 full days of the conference in addition to free general access to the exhibition floor. Government representatives attend FREE.
India, Singapore and Norway are some of the countries leading the way in the development of digital public infrastructure as a means of enabling secure and seamless experiences for their citizens. The AADHAAR card program introduced by the Indian Government has already provided 1.3 billion users with digital IDs as the number of users of digital identity worldwide stands at 4.2 billion.
The Philippines and Thailand are also investing in substantial ID innovation, creating regulatory and infrastructure foundations for the provision of digital identity.
While some nations are proving the necessity of having digital economies and infrastructure, The World Economic Forum has published five insights to accelerate tech change elsewhere across all global markets from banking to education, travel and healthcare.
The value of a digital ecosystem is recognised by most countries, in breeding more information-based services and products for citizens and consumers; the key insights in the report further encourage governments around the world to take a whole-society approach in considering their digital transformations.
In summary, countries are able to achieve digital sovereignty and build infrastructure that serves the public interest and continues to enhance citizen experiences with making transactions and accessing private and public services.
Governments and large entities managing digital infrastructure for state services must also leverage working with other countries on strategic decision making around data security and portability, how to optimise the user experience and create interoperable systems.
As digitalisation transforms many sectors and government functions, the World Economic Forum stresses the importance of adopting a people-first approach to ensure regulation and good governance is the foundation of advancements of technology.
Norway’s national digital ID scheme to optimise online banking is another case that demonstrates how favourable digital systems are to speed up adoption, onboarding procedures, identity verification and lowers costs, however to experience the full benefits of DPI and DPGs, the World Economic Forum cites the need for cooperation and commitment from all stakeholders, including governments, enterprises and organisation.
TheIndian government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce highlights the potential of DPGs for creating open and decentralised DPI.
The Association of Banks in Singapore is collaborating with The Monetary Authority of Singapore on implementing further measures to protect consumers against the present risks of digital banking fraud, stepping up its actions announced in January.
Banks across Singapore are increasing their support of customers by requiring multi-factor authentication in order to process significant changes to customers’ accounts and allow high-risk transactions. As part of more efforts to safeguard customers, Singapore Police Force has also been consulted in decisions to introduce new measures that banks must follow.
In addition, a cap on the maximum amount which can be transacted will be come into effect. Customers will also have more control and ownership over suspending their own accounts if they suspect it has been compromised. Across the banking sector, these new protective measures will force banks to do more in enhancing fraud surveillance systems to counteract the threat of a rising number of financial scams, which include phishing, authorised push payment fraud and social engineering tactics.
The Global Identity and Fraud Report conducted by Experian found that 1 in 4 customers in the Asia-Pacific have been victims of fraud, with China and India appearing to be especially concerned over being defrauded through social media sites or apps.
Customers have also been urged to stay vigilant of common scam techniques and comply with the recommendations to utilise bank apps more often and refer to trusted sources.
Consolidating the work of the Anti-Scam Taskforce, established in 2020, an ABS committee on Fraud will drive anti-fraud intervention efforts.
Wee Ee Cheong, Chairman, Association of Banks in Singapore, said, “As an industry, we are constantly reviewing and putting in place sensible and secure measures to safeguard our customers from scams while allowing them to bank with ease. Combating scams, whether digital or otherwise, requires the effort and cooperation of everyone – banks, ecosystem players and also customers. Public awareness and staying vigilant are key. We are committed to work together with all stakeholders to uphold the trust and confidence of digital banking.”
Digital transformation has accelerated momentum around real-time, cross border payments and digital wallets.
In 2021, GlobalData assessed that 118.3 billion real-time transactions were made globally with a forecast of 427.7 billion expected by 2026, equal to a quarter of all global digital payments.
While a prime-time for our digital economy, ACI Worldwide reports a surge in the number of hacking schemes targeting digital wallet users, with 10% of UK adults reportedly falling victim to this form of fraud.
Digital wallets have increased capability to store funds, financial information and allow the user to make transactions and track payment transfers on most devices.
The rollout of digital wallets, which the European Commission is in the process of currently approving, promises faster and more efficient payment methods for businesses and consumers alike. The Commission set out in 2021 to deliver a trusted and secure digital identity for Europeans citizens. Payments are also becoming increasingly connected with fin-tech apps.
Cases of digital wallet fraud through digital account hacking, social engineering techniques and identity theft have also affected 13% of people in France, 11.7% of Italy’s population, and a 41% of India’s population.
UK Finance, the association of banking and finance enterprises, closely follows the rising trends in financial crime infiltrating the sector and recently uncovered £1.3 billion losses to online fraud in 2021. The association regularly reports on the shifts in criminals changing their focuses to exploit weaknesses in customers’ accounts.
One of the tactics criminals will deploy to trick and defraud the consumer into making an authorities payment to a criminal account is termed authorised push payment (APP) fraud. Social manipulation tactics are common with this type of financial crime to elicit the consumer’s personal information and passwords, whereby criminals will try a range of approaches including phone calls, text messages and emails.
Across the Finance sector, consumers are reminded to be vigilant of fraud and payment scams but Cleber Martins, Head of Payments Intelligence and Risk Solutions at ACI Worldwide comments: “Banks need to wake up to the fact that, while they need to use their most advanced technology to monitor outgoing transactions, the same needs to be done for incoming payments to detect mule and fraudulent accounts,” said Cleber Martins, head of payments intelligence and risk solutions, ACI Worldwide.
“We must see increased accountability at the receiving end and enhanced data sharing among all participants in the ecosystem – without breaching privacy regulations. As fraudsters are becoming more advanced, a detailed and holistic view of all payments activity is essential to containing them,” he added.
The pandemic has forged profound new ways of working remotely that have seen consumers demand more from technologies and have greater expectations around secure identity.
IFSEC Global in partnership with HID Global, a global innovator in trusted identity solutions, has published its 2022 State of Physical Access Control Report addressing the emerging trends in new organisational practices changing market demands for IAM mobile solutions.
The report reveals a change in attitudes with 42% of participants planning to upgrade to mobile-ready contactless systems, which would improve operational efficiency for enterprises while enabling more convenient, quick and secure mobile access for users.
Over 1000 respondents took part in the survey across the EMEA region, North America and Asia Pacific. 32% of people admitted they would upgrade to touchless access experiences, having greater requirements for convenient and secure technology since the pandemic began.
The report compares attitudes around a faster rate of innovation with polls from 2020. In 2020, 51% of respondents said their current system met or exceeded their requirements while the latest figures show a downturn in user satisfaction to only 41%.
End-user requirements in the last two years have also included the need for interoperable systems which are capable of supporting new upgrades and integrating with existing technologies. This was voted as being a critical feature of a new access control solution by 49% of users.
HID Global supply trusted identity solutions, giving people effortless and seamless identity verification experiences to access digital networks, services, personalised badges, verify transactions, find information, track assets and connect with others.
Facial recognition technology is rife in India’s state of Telangana, where the Government’s investment in technologies means the private sector and law enforcement monitor society to a worrying degree.
Not only does Telangana deploy an extensive CCTV network across the country, but the advancements of biometric systems and data are contributing to a hardline approach to policing or “spying” on normal citizens. The objectives of the police can be varied from cordon and search warrants, to biometrics profiling, and phone hacking.
Numerous facial biometric datasets have been compiled into a “smart governance program” called Samagram, which records detailed information profiling an individual’s employment status, residency, heritage. The goal is to catch criminals with the most streamlined approaching to policing however this seems to have been overstepped by some extreme measures, including to stop and search mask-wearers.
IT Secretary in Telangana said in 2019: “We have created a best algorithm through which this machine learning capabilities has become so robust that today we have reached a level of almost 96-97 percent accuracy. So if you tell me one person’s name I can give his entire digital footprint at about 96 percent accuracy to them… this tool throws up the results in a matter of seconds and the tool also is very useful in doing what is called family tree analysis or relationship analysis.”
Circulated to over 220 member user organisations, the Biometrics Institute’s annual survey helps define the trends and development in the biometrics industry. This year’s findings confirmed digital identity is perceived to be the area of most development in the use of facial biometrics, followed by border control and security, national identity and digital wallets.
Digital identity ranked the highest for the second year running, indicating growing trends for decentralised technology enabling consumers to have control over verifying their identity. Despite the convenience and innovation that biometrics provide, the general consensus of professionals that partook in the survey indicated that biometric technology should not be optimised in every industry application.
The top use mentions included social media with 30% consensus, birth registration at 26% (down from 24%) and school administration. Biometrics are also generally considered to be necessarily and beneficial to counter terrorism threats in the travel industry, as well as financial fraud in banking, and help police and authorities to identify offenders.
As the technology advances to streamline many industries, the occurrence of data sharing is becoming more apparent between authorities, government, and police and key organisations like the IATA to capitalise on relevant identity profiles made readily available.
A public concern which is apparent through the survey is how organisations are leveraging personal data and how linked or shared databases could lead to mass surveillance of individuals or to compromising data privacy and security. These issues of trust, cited by half of people who took the survey, are considered to be the root of market restraints. Also voted for was legislation and governance (44%) and misinformation about biometrics (38%).
From a consumer’s perspective, the lack of regulation over AI and biometrics threatens to stifle its continued use by the public. However, legislation that has been introduced to hold more accountability against data sharing also risks firms not implementing biometrics to improve smooth on-boarding, efficiency and verification processes which all benefit the consumer.
57% of the survey’s participants agreed a lack of public trust and concerns over privacy and data protection was contributing to restrictive growth in biometric technology.
The Industry Survey 2022 anticipates digital identity applications will continue to be favoured by public and private sectors, with decentralisation a main priority in any further developments of biometrics.
Isabelle Moeller, Chief Executive of the Biometrics Institute, expanded on the findings. In a statement, she said: “Digital identity and biometrics remain at the forefront of developments. The surveillance use case creates most of the controversy, not only for government but also in commercial uses”.
“Privacy is the key concern and needs to be addressed through policy and process while testing and standards are essential ingredients for the choice of the technology.” The need for testing during the technology lifecycle is restated as to ascertain the live accuracy and motion of biometric solutions, especially while mask-wearing is still expected in some countries.
The applications of facial biometrics across many sectors eliminates any doubt as to the accuracy of artificial neural networks to match live facial images of people with advanced data.
While this fact is not in dispute, researchers at Kyushu University have recently expressed the view that AI which powers image recognition can fail to identify a person if an image is modified.
Through coming to understand the shortfalls of AI-powered biometrics, researchers have published a method called ‘Raw Zero-Shot’ that assesses how neural networks work with modified elements of a person’s appearance or photo. The aim is to understand all the potential features that may not be compatible with current detection capabilities of the AI in order to make systems more robust.
Explaining this concept, Danilo Vasconcellos Vargas who led the study said: “There is a range of real-world applications for image recognition neural networks, including self-driving cars and diagnostic tools in healthcare”.
“However, no matter how well trained the AI, it can fail with even a slight change in an image.”
In all applications where digitalisation and AI replaces a manual process, technology can not be guaranteed to always outperform human judgement in detecting errors or discrepancies. Facial biometrics can and have faltered whilst being deployed on such a scale to replace manual procedures such as border control around the world.
In fact, experts have found that while an doctored image may appear unchanged to the human eye, AI will not be able to accurately identity it. The team tested numerous image recognition AIs against photograph samples they had not been trained to detect in order to establish behavioural patterns.
Other global leaders in the field of biometric authentication are also seeking to significantly improve the accuracy of deep-learning algorithms that power facial recognition technology to secure safe international travel as well as streamline operations in the private sector.
The NEC was recently awarded a commendation by Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology in April to recognise the high-accuracy of its facial recognition technology in contributing to safety and security in the aviation sector.
In a latest study by Juniper Research, the findings suggest that online payment fraud losses could accelerate at an alarming rate to exceed $343 billion between 2023 and 2027. The targeted scams often include digital and physical goods, money transfer transactions and authorised push payments.
The number of new cases is on the rise as fraudsters look to engineer new ways to deceive businesses and customers and exploit trusted customer/corporate relationships. The digital world of e-commerce and banking which increasingly conveniences customers has enabled fraudsters to invent more elaborate schemes to achieve their end goals, using refined techniques such as phishing and pharming.
Emotional manipulation tactics are also more commonly used by fraudsters to gain the trust of their victim and enable transactions that seem legitimate to be orchestrated by the customer themselves. A range of fraud techniques exist including ‘Friendly Fraud’, where the merchant receives a chargeback request if a customer denies making a purchase or receiving the order.
The research indicates that fraudulent physical good purchases account for the most losses due to the additional profit offenders can generate from reselling goods.
The conclusions of the report calls on Digital ID and IAM vendors to assess their capabilities to integrate multi-factor authentication tools at the most vulnerable points in the customer journey, to increase resistance to any financial crime. Fundamentally, as report analyst Nich Manynards writes, “no two online transactions are the same, so the way transactions are secured cannot follow a one-size-fits-all solution”.
The major challenge to eliminate identity and data theft persists throughout the report despite its recommendations, acknowledging that customers simply do not recognise how identity theft is evolving and reappearing in different guises, including to manipulate human behaviour. The sophistication of social engineering techniques is most apparent in attacks on the unbanked population as fraudsters change tactic to targeting users of alternative payment products from Apple, Google, Amazon, WhatsApp, or Meta Libra/Novi.
The report also coincides with the recent findings of a UK Finance study into authorized push payment fraud which surged in the UK in 2021. Typically, this type of fraud is characterised by an offender impersonating or claiming to represent a trusted company in order to encourage the victim to make an unauthorised payment themselves.
UK Finance reported losses of £1.3 billion to APP fraud during 2021, an increase of 39% from the previous year. 195,996 incidents of APP fraud were recorded, with 40% involving fraudsters who impersonated the UK National Health Service, banks, and other government departments over the phone, by email, text or false websites.
India’s technology weapon against the West in the Unified Payment Interface looks set to expand to oversea markets after substantial success in the home domestic market.
In a market case-study conducted by Sheer Analytics and Insights, it was reported that India’s UPI market was worth $60.3 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $440.3 billion between 2022 and 2032.
The secure interface is used to make instant transactions through a mobile phone. While Western companies like Meta are scrapping their e-wallets due to a downturn in cryptocurrency trends, India is independently rising with the fastest digital payment system which on-boards multiple bank accounts onto a single mobile application.
Meanwhile, French payments solution provider, Lyra Network, has also revealed it is prepared to deploy India’s UPI interface and RuPay cards, securing a breakthrough in the European Union. In February 2022, the NIPL partnered with an established payment solution operator called Gateway Payments Service Pvt Ltdt to implement UPI entry into Nepal.
The West’s hype with Web 3 is also just a mystical idea for a new global internet. UPI sets out to deliver exactly what blockchain technology aims to do in increasing a decentralised approach and open protocol on which other technologies can be built.
On the India Stack website, the project is described as “a set of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at population scale”. India manages 99 billion transactions with the Unified Payment Interface, driving financial inclusion and transformation across global e-commerce as other countries come onboard.
With over 150 million users monthly, the UPI model of offering free transactions from anyway abroad undercuts the rates of systems from the likes of Mastercard and Visa that charge 3% to 5% of a total transaction.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) predicts that UPI payments will account for 8% of India’s total GDP in 2025.
Appearing at Digital India Week, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi asserted India’s status in leading a digital revolution with instant payment systems, saying: “Today, digital products like UPI are (even) the centre of attraction for developed countries of the world, or those countries which cannot invest in this type of technology. Our digital solutions have the reach, are secure and have democratic values.”
A study by Juniper Research has predicted global expenditure in identity and access management could rise to $26 billion by 2027, due to subscription model growth.
The new research identifies a shift in the IAM market moving away from term licenses to more SMEs embracing the Software as a Service (SaaS) model which has increased benefits including financial reliability, predictability of cash flows, and reasonable initial service costs.
As a result of this shift, service vendors will see their addressable market increase significantly while keeping the initial acquisition cost of identity and access management services reasonably low. It is expected that the appetite for IAM services amongst small businesses will also prompt service vendors to offer more, for example regular software updates and advanced cybersecurity features to continually increase the value of platforms.
If Identity and Access Management vendors want to continue seeing this growth and protect revenue, they will have to set out long-term flexible pricing tariffs that appeal to the small business sector.
IAM encompasses a range of security and foundational IT infrastructures for business platforms to enable the monitoring and management of consumer access to an enterprise’s assets, applications, databases and services.
The report predicts that the future of identity and access management solutions will change the face of many small enterprises, enhancing their IAM offering, driving market growth and will comply with regulation.
Furthermore, the report describes the ability of service vendors “to shift development from a waterfall approach to an agile methodology in software development” from subscription model growth.
Ultimately, subscription models eliminate the chance of small businesses being excluded from the identity and access management market and allow service providers to step up faster deployment and bespoke features to support scaled-up businesses.
The annual spend on IAM solutions by small businesses through subscription models is expected to surpass $370 million by 2027, with $5 billion spent in the U.S.
The four main components of IAM include authentication, authorisation, user management, and central user repository to facilitate access to a verified user in real-time, every-time.
All customers have the right to expect trust and respect over the use and handling of their personal data, however as a new study by Mastercard has revealed, non-binary individuals face discrimination in their financial experiences.
The damning results of the study show that while the finance and banking sector continues to enhance systems of on-boarding to collect new consumers, there is less consideration towards how personal data is safeguarded and treated. Only 68% of the transgender community have the correct ID featuring the name and gender they identity as and 19% of non-binary individuals have experienced prejudice when making payments in shops, presenting their ID or having to navigate intrusive questions.
The ‘True Name’ Initiative started by Mastercard in the U.S. in 2019 has in pleasant contrast to other financial services, acted upon calls from the LGBTQ+ community to allow these customers to change and use their true identifiers on cards without legally having to change their name and gender.
The recent research is backed up by previous findings in January of this year which concluded that nearly 50% of transgender or non-binary people feel anxiety, embarrassment and frustration when using their formal ID that doesn’t reflect their gender marker.
The True Name campaign allows customers to easily transition to being their true gender or identity when making payments and running errands in everyday life, as well as to avoid the expensive, time-consuming process of legally changing their gender.
Jennifer Douglas, Head of North American Retail and Small Business Payments at BMO says: “Helping customers make real financial progress is important, and that starts with providing safe and accessible banking to our customers by removing barriers to inclusion”.
More U.S. banks have followed suit including Citibank, Marqeta, and The Republic Bank to support simplified on-boarding of these individuals, using the name and gender they identity as.
During this Pride month, Mastercard also launched The Belle Block program, an industry group to encourage women and non-binary individuals to use Web 3.0 technology and cryptocurrency.
