Identity, Security, Payments, Biometrics, Smart Cards and Authentication News

Indian cyber cafes to be monitored with biometrics

Thursday, July 17, 2008

In an effort to slow the growing threat of online criminals and impostors, the Indian Police have begun implementing new security measures for using computers at cyber cafes, according to a I.T. Vibe article. The new security measures include recording a user’s photograph, name, address and their thumb print.


Following a trial of the new system at 150 cafes, the police were satisfied with the results, however, the public is worried about privacy concerns.

With cyber crimes growing quite a bit in India, the police are very interested in curbing it, however, due to public worry over privacy, a compromise is expected.

Read the full story here [end] 

Prisoners at Tihar prisons, located near New Delhi, India, will now be using smart cards instead of paper coupons for their food purchases.

As reported by The Economic Times, the former system of paper food coupons led to misuse and illegal activity within the jail. Some prisoners would use it for currency in order to get banned substances or buy favors from others.

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India’s government has called a truce in the ongoing argument between the Ministry of Home Affairs’s National Population Register (NPR) project and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), reports the Indian Express.

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University of California Riverside (UCR) is in the process of investigating an incident which may have lead to hackers gaining access to more than 5,000 individual credit/debit card numbers.

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A Cabinet Committee working under India’s Home Minister will be deciding who will be responsible for the collection of biometric data from Indian citizens for the Unique Identification Number (UID) program that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was originally set to perform, according to an article from The Economic Times.

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The Indian start-up ArrayShield Technologies has entered the two-factor authentication market in India and is looking for value-added resellers, managed service providers and system integrators to help it become a player in this field, which it estimates to be nearly Rs 2 billion.

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The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) is focusing on a goal of driving the research and development of biometrics and building the future of the industry around a concern for end-user privacy protection.

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