Customer Success Manager at Identy.io

Q: What is biometric authentication?

Biometric authentication is the process of confirming a returning user's identity using a unique biological trait — such as their face, fingerprint or palm — instead of passwords or tokens. The live sample is compared against a previously enrolled template to grant or deny access.

Q: What are the main biometric authentication methods?

The most widely deployed methods are facial recognition, fingerprint recognition (including contactless capture via smartphone camera), palm recognition, iris scanning and voice recognition. Multimodal systems combine two or more traits for higher assurance.

Q: Is biometric authentication more secure than passwords?

Yes. Biometric traits cannot be phished, reused across sites or forgotten, and when protected by certified liveness detection they resist spoofing. Passwords remain the leading cause of account compromise through phishing and credential stuffing.

Q: What is the difference between biometric authentication and identity verification?

Identity verification happens once, at onboarding, to establish who a person is against an official document. Biometric authentication happens on every return visit, confirming the user is the same person who was originally verified.

Q: Can biometric authentication work without special hardware?

Yes. Contactless biometric SDKs capture fingerprints, palms and faces using the standard camera of any smartphone, removing the dependency on dedicated sensors and extending biometric security to every device.

How Identy’s Touchless Fingerprinting Helped Reunite an Unidentified Patient With His Family

Rodrigo Ramos — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:50:41 +0000

Giving People Back Their Identity: How Mobile Fingerprinting Is Helping Solve Unidentified Person Cases

In 2025 alone, nearly 500,000 missing person records were entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. But even when someone is found, the challenge of determining who they are remains. Without reliable identification or the ability to communicate, connecting an unidentified person with their name and family can require an extensive investigation. Until providers establish the patient’s identity, the patient and their family may be unable to participate in critical care decisions.

That was the challenge facing a social worker when an unidentified patient arrived at a Southern California hospital unable to communicate. The patient had no phone, no reliable identification and no family members at their bedside who could provide answers.

This social worker has encountered unidentified people throughout her career, including while working in drop-in shelters. Some had lived on the streets for so long that the names they used were no longer necessarily their legal identities, but nicknames they’ve used their entire lives. In situations like those, quickly capturing fingerprints could provide another way to find an answer.

For the hospital social worker assigned to the case, the search for an identity began with combing through the patient’s electronic medical record for a name, address and phone number. She checked their belongings, spoke with nurses and reviewed the EMS run sheet to determine where the patient had been picked up.

The address led her to a nearby motel, but a call there produced another dead end. The only identification the motel had on file could not be used to confirm the patient’s identity. At the hospital, social workers have a binder filled with missing-person flyers and other resources that they can consult when alternate methods fail. She combed through the materials looking for someone who matched her patient, but didn’t find a match.

With traditional options running out, she contacted the Los Angeles Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit who recommended checking fingerprints.

Turning a Smartphone Into an Identification Tool

Members of the Los Angeles Police Department Missing Persons Unit had been introduced to My Family ID, a mobile application that uses Identy.io‘s touchless fingerprint technology to capture fingerprints using a standard smartphone camera.

The technology was originally brought to My Family ID with the goal to make it easier to preserve identifying information that could help law enforcement reunite missing people with their families. Through the collaboration, My Family ID replaced the need for paper-based fingerprint records with high-resolution digital fingerprints that can be captured from a mobile device and used by law enforcement identification systems.

Through a mutual contact, the LAPD MPU introduced the social worker to the My Family ID app. With the app, the social worker easily captured the unidentified patient’s fingerprints herself following the app’s walkthrough detailing how to position the patient’s fingers and capture usable images. Once collected, the app shared the fingerprints with the LAPD for comparison.

Within 24 hours, the fingerprints helped law enforcement identify the patient. With a name finally available, the social worker was able to locate the patient’s family, who traveled to the hospital and provided the answers that weeks of searching had not.

The social worker noted that this experience changed how she’d approach a similar case in the future. While the identification process traditionally requires exhausting one investigative avenue after another, she said that with the application readily available, she would use the My Family ID app first in the future.

Giving People Back Their Identity

For Charles Still, founder of My Family ID, making fingerprint capture simple enough for someone without specialized equipment or extensive training was essential. With Identy.io’s technology, individuals can use the camera and LED flash already built into a smartphone to capture high-quality fingerprints without a traditional fingerprint scanner.

The software can capture all 10 fingerprints and was designed to accommodate differences in finger and hand size while guiding users through the process. Fingerprint data is processed locally on the device and the resulting images are compatible with traditional law enforcement fingerprint identification systems.

As mobile fingerprint capture becomes available in more environments, ensuring the technology can distinguish a real person from an attempted spoof is equally important.

Identy.io’s Finger AI application recently completed iBeta Level 1 Presentation Attack Detection testing in accordance with ISO/IEC 30107-3. Across 1,800 presentation attacks conducted on two devices, iBeta was unable to achieve a false liveness classification, resulting in a 0% Attack Presentation Classification Error Rate.

The testing adds another layer of validation to technology designed around the premise that reliable fingerprint capture should not depend on access to specialized hardware.

For families, that can mean having identifying information available before an emergency happens. For social workers and others trying to identify individuals, it can offer a faster way to resolve cases when traditional methods have failed. And sometimes, as one hospital social worker discovered, a smartphone and a fingerprint can help give someone back their identity.

In the end, the patient’s own biometrics provided the identification that a driver’s license or hospital wristband could not. Biometrics couldn’t be lost, forged or left behind, allowing the patient to become the key to their own identity.

La entrada How Identy’s Touchless Fingerprinting Helped Reunite an Unidentified Patient With His Family se publicó primero en identy.io.

Touchless Fingerprint Capture for the Field: Meeting NIST FastCAP Phase One Criteria

Rodrigo Ramos — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:49:56 +0000

Advancing Touchless Fingerprint Technology: What’s next for NIST FastCAP

For years, fingerprint capture has depended on specialized scanners and physical contact with a device. Touchless fingerprint technology is changing where and how fingerprints can be captured, bringing the process to commercial mobile devices as well as expanding its potential use across field, remote and established identity environments.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently completed the first phase of its Fast Capture (FastCAP) program, an initiative focused on evaluating contactless fingerprint technologies for rapid tenprint capture. Of the 18 biometric technology providers participating in the program, Identy.io was among the 12 reported to have met the qualification criteria.

The results define an important qualification benchmark for a touchless fingerprint market that continues to mature. The next step will be on building on that foundation with improved insights into comparative performance, giving government organizations and technology vendors a better understanding of how qualified solutions stack against specific technical and operational standards.

Why Touchless Fingerprint Capture Matters

Fingerprint recognition is widely used across government, law enforcement and border security, but dedicated capture equipment can limit where enrollment and identification take place. Touchless technology offers an alternative, allowing organizations to extend fingerprint capture beyond these traditional environments.

At Identy.io, our technology enables organizations to capture fingerprints using commercial mobile devices without dedicated fingerprint scanners. The mobile-first approach can extend biometric capabilities to field environments, remote enrollment scenarios and locations in which traditional infrastructure may be difficult or expensive to deploy.

Our mobile-first approach can also reduce hardware and infrastructure requirements while supporting deployments within settings with limited connectivity.

FastCAP: A Standard for Contactless Fingerprint Technology

NIST created FastCAP to advance the testing and evaluation of contactless fingerprint acquisition technologies, which capture fingerprints without requiring users to place their fingers against a traditional scanner.

During the first phase, providers joined the program through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), working with NIST to evaluate biometric acquisition capabilities, refine performance measures and test prototypes for contactless rapid tenprint capture.

Qualification testing was based on NIST Special Publication 500-339, which establishes requirements for certification testing of contactless fingerprint acquisition devices. The framework examines technical characteristics including image entropy, signal-to-noise ratio, scale and fingerprint image quality.

Moving Toward Greater Performance Visibility

NIST’s FastCAP program provides a common qualification framework for a developing technology category. As adoption expands, more detailed performance data could give organizations greater insight into how qualified technologies perform across specific measures.

Performance-based results could help organizations assess solutions against operational requirements while giving technology providers clearer benchmarks for continued improvement in areas such as image quality, interoperability and usability.

As more programs like FastCAP develop, there is an opportunity to build that foundation through more detailed comparative performance reporting. Initial qualification responses indicate whether the technology met the required threshold while separate performance benchmarks can help answer how it performs relative to other qualified technologies and its effectiveness for specific missions or use cases.

That information would benefit both technology buyers and technology developers. Government organizations would receive additional evidence for assessing solutions against mission requirements, while providers would gain clearer insight into where their technologies lead, existing gaps and where further investment could improve performance.

A model that emphasizes performance can also create a positive competitive dynamic across the biometrics industry. When companies can clearly see how their technology performs relative to established benchmarks, there is a stronger incentive to continue improving rather than focusing on qualification requirements.

Building Touchless Fingerprint Technology for Real-World Use

At Identy.io, our touchless fingerprint capabilities are built around commercial smartphones, removing the requirement for specialized fingerprint capture hardware. Our mobile-first architecture backs deployments in field and limited-connectivity environments, while on-device processing can reduce reliance on centralized infrastructure.

We also combine fingerprint and facial biometrics to support multimodal identity workflows from a mobile device. Our technology supports the identity journey from mobile biometric capture through verification and identification to reusable digital identity, allowing organizations to establish, verify and reuse trusted identities across multiple stages of the identity lifecycle.

Our focus on mobile identity has also been evaluated beyond FastCAP. In the Department of Homeland Security’s Remote Identity Validation Rally (DHS RIVR), which evaluated face liveness technology, Identy.io was the only evaluated system, across both active and passive approaches, to achieve 0% Attack Presentation Classification Error Rate (APCER). No attacks were accepted across all three attack classes and both operating systems, including Class C attacks that require specialized hardware and significant attacker resources.

Results at this level of detail allow government organizations to understand whether a technology participated successfully in an evaluation, and more importantly how it performed against measurable security and usability criteria. As touchless fingerprint testing matures, similar visibility could become increasingly valuable to organizations making technology and deployment decisions.

What's Next for Touchless Fingerprint Technology?

NIST plans to expand the FastCAP qualification testing model as a framework for ongoing testing, with Phase Two expected to include additional vendor involvement and partnership with government organizations to encourage adoption of contactless biometrics.

For us, satisfying the FastCAP qualification criteria reinforces our investment in bringing fingerprint capture to commercial mobile devices. The next stage of that progress should be increasing the depth and transparency of performance measurement. More granular benchmarks can help government organizations determine which technologies are best suited to specific environments, while giving providers concrete targets for continued innovation.

As touchless fingerprint technology adoption grows, independent standards, in-depth evaluation and transparent performance data will all be critical to building confidence in the technology. The more clearly the market can measure performance, the stronger the incentive will be for the entire industry to continue raising the bar.

La entrada Touchless Fingerprint Capture for the Field: Meeting NIST FastCAP Phase One Criteria se publicó primero en identy.io.

Biometric Authentication: What It Is, Methods & How It Works

Rodrigo Ramos — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 11:07:25 +0000

Biometric authentication confirms a returning user’s identity through a unique biological trait (face, fingerprint or palm) instead of a password or token. Because the credential is the person, it cannot be phished, shared, reused across services or forgotten. This guide explains how biometric authentication works, the main methods and their trade-offs, how it differs from identity verification, and what it takes to deploy it on any smartphone without special hardware.

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What Is Biometric Authentication?

Biometric authentication is the second half of the digital identity lifecycle. Verification establishes who you are once, at onboarding; authentication proves you are still you every time you return. Technically, a live biometric sample is captured, converted into a mathematical template, and compared against the template enrolled at verification. A match above threshold grants access; everything else is rejected or escalated.

Three properties make biometrics superior to knowledge-based credentials: they are unique to each individual, always present (nothing to remember or carry), and when protected by liveness detection hard to steal in usable form, because a photo of a face is not a face.

How Biometric Authentication Work

Enrollment. During onboarding, the user’s biometric trait is captured and transformed into an encrypted template. Raw images are discarded; templates are stored on-device or in a secure enclave depending on the privacy architecture.
Capture. On each login or transaction, the user presents the trait to the device camera or sensor.
Liveness check. The system confirms a live human is present, blocking photos, replays, masks and deepfakes — the anti-fraud layer we cover in depth in our guide to liveness detection software.
Matching. The fresh template is compared to the enrolled one; a similarity score above threshold authenticates the user in under a second.

Experience Identy.io in action

Get a tailored demo of our contactless biometric platform and see how it fits your specific use case.

Biometric Authentication Methods

Facial recognition

The most frictionless method: the front camera captures the face passively during app use. Modern engines handle pose, lighting and aging, and pair with passive liveness for spoof resistance. Developers integrate it through a facial recognition SDK.

Fingerprint recognition

The most established modality. Beyond capacitive sensors, contactless fingerprint capture photographs the fingerprints with the standard rear camera and matches them against sensor-enrolled or card-enrolled prints, enabling deployment on any device — see the finger biometric SDK.

Palm recognition

Palm prints offer a large, stable trait that captures well at a distance with a phone camera, tolerating dirt and minor injuries better than fingerprints — a strong fit for workforce and financial-inclusion scenarios via the palm biometric SDK.

Other modalities and combinations

Iris and voice recognition serve niche high-security and hands-free contexts. Combining two or more traits raises assurance further; we analyze that approach in multimodal biometrics, the future of digital authentication.

Biometric Authentication vs Passwords, OTPs and Tokens

Passwords fail through phishing, reuse and credential-stuffing; SMS OTPs fail through SIM-swap; hardware tokens are costly and losable. Biometrics eliminate the shared secret entirely: there is nothing to intercept that can be replayed, provided the system enforces certified liveness. This is why frameworks such as NIST SP 800-63B recognize biometrics as an authentication factor when bound to a device and protected by presentation attack detection, and why passwordless initiatives from the FIDO Alliance lean on device-bound biometrics.

Security: Anti-Spoofing and Privacy

Two questions decide whether a biometric system is trustworthy. First, can it be spoofed? Only solutions independently tested against ISO/IEC 30107-3 — such as Identy’s PAD Level 2 certified engine — can substantiate anti-spoofing claims. Second, where does the data live? Privacy-first architectures keep templates encrypted on-device, process matching locally where possible, and never store raw biometric images, aligning with GDPR’s treatment of biometric data as a special category.

Use Cases

Banking and fintech: passwordless login, transaction signing and step-up authentication — detailed in face and fingerprint identification in banking and fintech.
Government services: citizen authentication for benefits, tax portals and digital ID programs.
Enterprise workforce: shared-device login in retail, logistics and healthcare without badge or password friction.
High-risk actions: payment release, account recovery and privilege escalation guarded by a biometric step-up.

Implementing Biometric Authentication with an SDK

Deployment reduces to one decision: hardware-dependent or contactless. Contactless SDKs use the existing smartphone camera for face, fingerprint and palm, which means every user’s device is already compatible. Evaluate accuracy benchmarks (NIST testing), liveness certification, on-device processing options, offline support and integration effort. The Identy biometric SDK covers all three modalities with passive liveness in native mobile and web packages.

Experience Identy.io in action

Get a tailored demo of our contactless biometric platform and see how it fits your specific use case.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is biometric authentication?

The process of confirming a returning user’s identity using a unique biological trait — face, fingerprint or palm — by comparing a live sample against a previously enrolled template.

What are the main biometric authentication methods?

Facial recognition, fingerprint recognition (including contactless capture), palm recognition, iris and voice. Multimodal systems combine several traits for higher assurance.

Is biometric authentication more secure than passwords?

Yes. Biometric traits cannot be phished, reused or forgotten, and certified liveness detection makes them resistant to spoofing — unlike passwords, the leading cause of account compromise.

What is the difference between biometric authentication and identity verification?

Verification happens once at onboarding against an official document; authentication happens on every return visit to confirm the same person is back.

Can biometric authentication work without special hardware?

Yes. Contactless SDKs capture fingerprints, palms and faces with the standard smartphone camera, extending biometric security to every device.

NIST SP 800-63B — Digital Identity Guidelines: Authentication and Lifecycle Management. https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/
NIST — Face Technology Evaluations (FRTE/FRVT). https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/face-technology-evaluations-frtefate
FIDO Alliance — User Authentication Specifications (passwordless / passkeys). https://fidoalliance.org/specifications/
ISO/IEC 30107-3 — Biometric presentation attack detection, Part 3. https://www.iso.org/standard/79520.html
EDPB / GDPR Art. 9 — Processing of special categories of personal data (biometric data). https://gdpr-info.eu/art-9-gdpr/

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Biometric verification solutions are strengthening security for telecommunications

Rodrigo Ramos — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 15:15:17 +0000

The rapid digitization of financial, administrative, and telecommunications services in Latin America has accelerated the adoption of biometric verification solutions and advanced biometrics for telecommunications to combat the growing rise of digital fraud and identity theft. In Mexico alone, nearly 16 million people could fall victim to some form of digital fraud by 2026, according to estimates based on data from the National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Financial Services Users (CONDUSEF), while the Federal Telecommunications Institute warns that more than 95.5% of the country’s mobile phone users are exposed to phenomena such as SIM swapping if they do not implement additional security measures beyond authentication via SMS or phone calls.

At the same time, countries such as Peru and Colombia also face significant challenges related to both digital security and technological inclusion: according to data from the Crime and Violence Observatory, more than 2.7 million Peruvians experienced some form of identity theft in 2025, while a study by Accenture reveals that 32% of Peruvian business leaders currently consider identity theft to be their top concern.

Among the most frequent types of fraud in telecommunications are:

Fake call centres: Criminals pose as bank or telecommunications company employees to convince victims to install remote access applications, taking full control of the phone and accessing banking apps or personal data.
Non-existent prizes: Criminals resort to supposed prizes or fake promotions to pressure users into sharing confidential information or making immediate payments.
Virtual kidnappings: Criminals use calls manipulated with ambient sounds and leaked internet data to generate panic and demand urgent transfers.

These scam methods demonstrate how telecommunications fraud no longer depends solely on technical vulnerabilities, but also on the attackers’ ability to exploit people’s identity and trust.

Biometric verification solutions as a new barrier against telecommunications fraud

The growth of phone scams and identity theft attempts has forced the telecommunications sector to adopt stronger biometric verification solutions and more secure biometrics for telecommunications authentication mechanisms. In an environment where criminals resort to emotional manipulation and the use of artificial intelligence to deceive users, biometrics is establishing itself as one of the most effective tools for protecting both users and organisations. In this case, biometric verification technologies significantly reduce the risks associated with identity theft by ensuring that the person accessing a service, authorising an operation, or requesting a procedure is truly who they say they are.

The process begins with digital onboarding, where biometric verification solutions allow users to capture their fingerprints or facial features using their own mobile phone to generate secure digital credentials. From that moment on, these credentials can be used to validate the user’s identity against official databases, allowing for 1:1 and 1:N authentication processes with high levels of reliability. Furthermore, these solutions allow for the issuance of biometric QR codes containing validated user information, which can be used to authenticate or share specific data in a controlled manner, allowing each person to decide what information they share, when, and with whom.

This approach is particularly relevant for biometrics for telecommunications, where many scams occur precisely through fake calls, line change requests, SIM swaps, or fraudulent access to user accounts. Thanks to biometrics, it is possible to add a layer of security that is practically impossible to replicate using traditional methods based solely on passwords, SMS, or security questions, which are often vulnerable to social engineering attacks or data leaks.

Unlike the basic biometric systems integrated into many mobile devices, Identy.io’s biometric verification solutions are not limited to checking that the face or fingerprint matches those previously stored on the phone. The technology compares the user’s biometric information against verified credentials and authorised databases, ensuring the real authenticity of the digital identity and considerably raising the level of protection against sophisticated fraud attempts.

Passive liveness and on-device architecture in biometric verification solutions

One of Identy.io’s differentiating elements is the use of passive liveness detection technology, designed to detect fraud attempts without adding complexity to the user experience. Unlike other systems that require specific movements, such as blinking, smiling, or turning the head, this technology works transparently and automatically, analysing factors such as skin micro-movements, facial patterns, depth, or light reflections to confirm that the person interacting with the system is real and not a photograph, a video, a mask, or an AI-generated deepfake.

This is especially important in the current context, where cybercriminals increasingly use artificial intelligence tools to create synthetic identities or simulate real voices and images with a high degree of precision. Thanks to the use of advanced AI algorithms and proprietary biometric models, these solutions are capable of identifying anomalies imperceptible to the human eye and blocking fraudulent access before it can compromise the security of the user or the telecommunications operator.

Added to this layer of security is a completely on-device architecture, in which all the user’s biometric information is processed and stored directly on the mobile phone itself. This means that sensitive data does not need to be constantly sent to external servers to validate identity, drastically reducing the risks associated with leaks, interceptions, or attacks on centralized databases. Furthermore, this approach eliminates the dependency on a permanent internet connection and allows the solution to work even on low-end devices that only need a camera and a flash to capture biometric information.

In a context where phone scams and identity theft evolve at the same pace as technology, biometrics for telecommunications are becoming essential for protecting users without creating friction in their digital experience. Advanced biometrics, combined with secure architectures and user-centric privacy models, is emerging as one of the most solid responses to this new threat landscape. Through technologies such as passive liveness, digital credentials, and on-device biometric authentication, Identy.io demonstrates how biometric verification solutions can help telecommunications companies build more secure, accessible, and reliable digital ecosystems.

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Security and greater convenience as a key to integrating biometrics into the user experience at the Football World Cup

Rodrigo Ramos — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 13:35:09 +0000

The Football World Cup is, without a doubt, one of the major sporting and social events of the decade. Until July 19th, 48 national teams will be competing for victory in a tournament which, for the first time in history, is held across three different host countries (Mexico, Canada and the United States). This edition was also one of the most popular in terms of visitor numbers, as more than 5.5 million spectators turned out to watch their favorite teams in action over the course of just three weeks.

Brazil is one of the countries—along with the three host nations—with the most fans in the stands: more than 500,000 Brazilians traveled to the United States, where their group stage matches were played. In the case of Colombia, the 120,000 fans traveled to two countries, as its matches were played in Mexico City and Guadalajara, Mexico, as well as in Miami, United States. This posed a significant logistical challenge for the visitors, who had to travel between venues by plane or by road and faced various border controls during their stay.

From a technological standpoint, this event also brought about significant innovations in the way visitors interact with authorities, in stadium access, and in the check-in process at their accommodations, to name just a few examples. In fact, digital transactions increased considerably during the tournament, which in turn led to a notable rise in fraud attempts. Therefore, it was necessary to verify fans’ identities to prevent fraud or identity theft in a manner that was fast, secure, and convenient enough not to cause any friction that might mar their experience. Biometrics thus became increasingly important as a means of streamlining many of the procedures visitors went through upon arrival in the cities where their national teams’ matches were played.

Biometrics as a tool to improve efficiency across all procedures during the World Cup

In a tournament that attracts millions of fans, being able to verify the identity of a user booking a room, buying a ticket for a particular match or simply attempting to pass through a border control is essential. In this regard, biometrics has established itself worldwide as a tool that significantly boosts the overall efficiency of all the processes in which it is used, whilst reducing friction and improving the overall user experience.

However, for this technology to be truly useful, it is important to carry out a few preliminary steps. The first of these is the onboarding process, through which the user captures their digital credentials – that is, their fingerprints or facial features – so that they can identify themselves correctly or validate their identity when necessary. In the case of the solutions developed by Identy.io, this process takes just a few seconds using the user’s own smartphone, by following the on-screen instructions. It is a simple and quick process in which the user does not need to perform any predefined actions, such as moving their head in a certain direction or blinking a certain number of times; instead, the system itself, thanks to the passive liveness check and its AI algorithms, is able to detect when the person in front of the camera might be a deepfake or a third party using a mask or a high-definition photograph to try to circumvent the system. This information is then cross-checked against centralised databases to verify the user’s identity (1:N identification) and ensure that the person is who they claim to be (1:1). Once it has been verified that the user is indeed who they claim to be, the user’s personal information is stored directly on their device under the strictest encryption protocols available on the market.

Once these digital credentials have been stored on the visitor’s mobile phone, they can be used for all kinds of digital procedures, even at times when, due to the large number of fans, there may be faults or outages in the connectivity service or the Wi-Fi systems in place. One of the areas where biometrics can prove most effective is in pre-border clearance, which will reduce waiting times for completing formalities and ease congestion at entry points in the countries visited. Government bodies will also benefit directly from the use of this technology, as it will drastically reduce potential cases of theft or identity theft, since it enables them to verify, almost in real time and with great accuracy, the identity of individuals attempting to cross a border or pass through an airport security checkpoint, by validating the user’s digital credentials against their centralised database and thus determining whether the tourist is indeed the person they claim to be.

To make it easier to use these digital credentials, visitors can choose to generate, using Identy.io’s solutions, a biometric QR code that embeds all their personal information once it has been validated. This QR code is particularly useful at digital check-in kiosks in hotels, for example, as a way of speeding up the check-in process. Thanks to these codes, visitors can choose which personal information to share, without needing an internet connection at that moment.

Biometrics to combat ticket reselling and as a way of speeding up entry to stadiums

Access to the stadiums where the matches were played also underwent a significant change thanks to biometrics. Until now, it was necessary to purchase physical tickets for each match, which increased the risk of counterfeiting or resale attempts. However, this World Cup pioneered the use of biometrics to streamline security checks at entry points and make them more efficient. When purchasing a ticket, users link their identity to it using their previously registered digital credentials. This way, in addition to being able to present their digital ticket at the stadiums directly from their cell phones, the risk of resale is eliminated, since only properly accredited individuals will be able to enter the stadiums.

In an increasingly digitized environment, and with one of the most heavily attended sporting events in history, ensuring spectator safety, enhancing their overall experience, and, in turn, reducing the incidence of fraud and identity theft are key to ensuring the smooth running of this and future World Cups. And biometrics is already a strategic ally in this regard.

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How Identy.io is Redefining Identity Protection in the Age of AI-Driven Fraud

Rodrigo Ramos — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:40:35 +0000

Identy.io highlights its multi-layer approach to combating AI-driven identity fraud through injection attack prevention, deepfake detection, multimodal biometrics, and on-device authentication.

DOVER, Del., June 23, 2026 — Identy.io, leading international company in touchless biometric identification and digital credential management solutions, has been featured in the newly released 2026 Injection Attack Detection Market Report & Buyer’s Guide, published by Biometric Update in partnership with Goode Intelligence. The report examines the growing threat of injection attacks, a rapidly evolving form of biometric fraud in which attackers bypass biometric capture devices and insert manipulated, synthetic, or AI-generated content directly into identity verification workflows. As organizations increasingly adopt remote onboarding and biometric authentication, injection attack detection (IAD) is emerging as a critical layer of identity assurance and fraud prevention.

In this context, Identy.io highlights how the fraud landscape has evolved beyond traditional presentation attacks involving printed photos, screens, or masks. Today, attackers can combine camera injection techniques with AI-powered deepfake generation to create highly convincing biometric forgeries capable of bypassing conventional liveness and presentation attack detection systems. To address this challenge, Identy.io has developed a defense strategy based on two independent security layers. The first focuses on injection attack prevention, protecting the integrity of the biometric capture pipeline by ensuring that biometric samples originate from a genuine physical camera and trusted execution environment. The second layer leverages passive liveness detection together with deepfake detection techniques to analyze biometric content, helping organizations verify the presence of a genuine user while identifying signs of AI-generated, manipulated, or synthetic facial imagery.

These complementary controls are designed to provide defense-in-depth against increasingly sophisticated attacks, ensuring that compromising one layer does not automatically compromise the other. Identy.io also emphasizes the importance of multimodal biometrics as a long-term response to the growing exposure of facial biometric data. With billions of facial images publicly available online, face biometrics have become a primary target for identity fraud. To strengthen identity assurance in high-security use cases, Identy.io enables fingerprint capture using standard smartphone cameras, adding an additional biometric factor that is significantly more difficult for attackers to obtain and replicate at scale.

Beyond addressing specific attack vectors, Identy.io views biometric security as a cornerstone of digital trust. As digital interactions increasingly replace in-person verification, organizations must ensure that users can prove their identity securely while maintaining control over their personal data. By combining advanced biometric technologies with reusable digital credentials, Identy.io helps organizations strengthen identity protection throughout the entire user journey, from onboarding and authentication to ongoing account access and transaction approval.

The company also believes that effective fraud prevention requires multiple layers of protection working together rather than relying on a single authentication factor. This is where multimodal biometrics plays a critical role. By combining facial biometrics with fingerprint authentication captured through standard smartphone cameras, organizations can significantly increase resilience against identity fraud while improving trust in digital services. This layered approach helps reduce the risk of account takeover, synthetic identity fraud, and AI-driven impersonation attacks, providing stronger security for both businesses and end users.

The report also discusses architectural approaches to biometric authentication. In this regard, Identy.io outlines the advantages of performing biometric matching directly on the user’s device rather than relying exclusively on centralized server-side comparisons. By executing the authentication process locally and matching against biometrics stored on the device, organizations can significantly reduce the feasibility of large-scale remote attacks. Traditional server-centric architectures create an environment in which any connected device can capture and submit biometric data for verification against centrally stored templates, increasing the potential attack surface. In contrast, a match-on-device approach requires the authentication process to take place on the specific device where the user’s biometric credentials are registered. This architecture limits opportunities for remote manipulation and makes large-scale fraud campaigns considerably more difficult to execute.

As stated by Jesús Aragón, CEO of Identy.io, “The inclusion of Identy.io in this report reflects the work we have been doing to stay ahead of the rapidly evolving threat landscape driven by AI-generated fraud. As deepfakes, camera injection attacks, and synthetic identities become increasingly sophisticated, organizations need more than traditional liveness checks. Our approach combines injection attack prevention, passive liveness detection, deepfake detection, multimodal biometrics, and on-device authentication to provide a stronger foundation for digital trust and identity assurance.”

As injection attacks and AI-generated identity fraud continue to evolve, Identy.io continues strengthening the integrity of both biometric capture and biometric matching processes, which will be essential for organizations seeking higher levels of identity assurance. By combining on-device authentication with injection attack prevention, deepfake detection, and multimodal biometrics, the company aims to provide a more resilient framework for defending against emerging threats.

La entrada How Identy.io is Redefining Identity Protection in the Age of AI-Driven Fraud se publicó primero en identy.io.

The new paradigm of the retail sector: biometrics as a guarantor of hyper-personalisation

Rodrigo Ramos — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:39:25 +0000

The global retail sector is at one of the most momentous points in its history. In Mexico, this sector already contributes approximately 10% of the country’s GDP, while in Brazil, its economic weight exceeded $231.08 billion by 2025. In Colombia, the sector reached $117.48 billion last year, compared to $65 billion in Peru.

Despite this significant economic impact, the sector is facing a new paradigmatic revolution. While until only a few years ago all eyes were on the importance of launching new e-commerce models to expand the target audiences of each business, the current model focuses on greater personalisation of services to maximise user loyalty. In today’s landscape, where consumers enjoy a vast range of different products and services, competition in the retail sector is no longer just about the need for greater visibility, but above all, about fostering a smoother and more efficient shopping experience and offering increasingly rapid responses to customer expectations.

In this context, more and more companies are opting to hyper-personalise their services as a way to differentiate themselves from the competition. A report by the consultancy McKinsey mentions an increase of up to 15% in revenue for companies in the sector that use this technique, while 71% of consumers expect a more personal interaction focused on their interests, leading 76% to feel frustrated when this does not happen. Factors such as the user’s location, purchase intent, preferred channel, or the moment of interaction are becoming increasingly relevant for retail companies, allowing for the activation of relevant offers and recommendations even before the consumer starts their purchase.

Biometrics: a new ally for the retail sector

As in other sectors, these personalisation needs require the storage and use of large volumes of users’ personal information. This includes not only their habits and shopping preferences but also the transactions they have carried out or the payment methods they have used. Going further, some loyalty programmes also allow for the accumulation of points that can be redeemed for new services or physical products, sometimes of great value. This is why biometrics has established itself as a true ally for the sector, by ensuring that the user accessing certain services is truly who they say they are.

Consequently, entities like Identy.io have worked on developing new ways to manage user identity and facilitate digital transactions more securely and efficiently through biometric solutions, which allow users to manage their digital credentials to authenticate and authorise operations. In these solutions, digital credentials—the user’s personal information—are cryptographically signed and stored on their own device, allowing the user to retrieve and use them at any time, even when they do not have a reliable or stable internet connection.

Biometrics as the key to reducing digital fraud

Biometric solutions allow for the generation of a unique QR code which, acting like an electronic wallet, gathers all the information necessary to authorise payments, verify the user’s age, or interact with retail loyalty programmes. All of this is done simply and conveniently from the user’s mobile device. The user only needs to authenticate themselves in the solution using their fingerprints or facial features, without the need for passwords or complex processes. With this verified data, companies minimize the risks of forgery or identity theft, especially in situations where fraudsters might try to create fake accounts to take advantage of welcome promotions or illegitimately accumulate points. As these digital credentials are linked directly to the legal user’s identity, companies reduce the mass creation of ghost accounts or the improper redemption of points for high-value products, thus minimising losses from account takeovers.

Identy.io proposes a decentralised digital identity model based on a privacy-by-design concept. All user information is stored solely on their mobile device, without using third-party servers or clouds. All of this is done with maximum compatibility with international standards for verifiable credentials (W3C VC) and regulatory frameworks such as eIDAS 2.0 in Europe or the progress of CUID in Mexico. Users can choose at any time what personal information they share, when, and with whom, in the most secure way thanks to passive liveness detection with AI algorithms, which prevents fraud, identity theft, and credential forgery.

As we can see, incorporating biometrics into the retail user experience goes beyond the use of a simple conventional wallet. By enabling secure payments, access to discounts, rewards, or participation in loyalty programmes, this technology becomes a strategic solution for the sector. At a time when user experience is becoming one of the pillars underpinning the industry’s growth, the ability to offer secure transactions, privacy, and hyper-personalised shopping experiences is key to generating value for both users and companies in the sector.

La entrada The new paradigm of the retail sector: biometrics as a guarantor of hyper-personalisation se publicó primero en identy.io.

Biometrics, the key to secure open finance implementation

Rodrigo Ramos — Thu, 28 May 2026 14:30:49 +0000

Open finance represents one of the most significant transformations in the financial industry in recent years. This model enables users to share their financial data, as well as information from other domains such as insurance, investments, or pensions, with various entities including banks, fintechs, and insurers, always with their explicit consent. Unlike the traditional system, where each bank operated within closed data silos, this approach paves the way for a more competitive, transparent, and user-centric ecosystem.

In Latin America, the development of open finance is progressing rapidly, although at different speeds across countries. Brazil stands out as the leading benchmark, with a fully operational system driven by its central bank that has evolved from open banking into a broader and more integrated framework. Unlike other markets, Brazil combines strong regulation with real adoption by both users and businesses, making it the most advanced case in the region. According to the Banco Central do Brasil, between 2021 and 2025 the open finance infrastructure enabled R$31 billion in credit operations that relied on data sharing, and the ecosystem reached 128 million active data-sharing consents. Financial inclusion rates have climbed to 82% of adults, up from 70% in 2020, according to the BCB’s 2025 Responsible and Inclusive System Report.

Mexico, meanwhile, was a pioneer with the approval of its Fintech Law in 2018, which laid the groundwork for open finance. However, despite having a defined legal framework, implementation has been partial and uneven. Cash usage remains widespread, although the 2024 National Financial Inclusion Survey, ENIF, reported an increase in financial product ownership, such as savings or credit accounts, to 77 percent of the adult population, up from 68 percent in 2021. In Peru, the proposal has been introduced more recently and remains under development. Its main objective is to expand access to the financial system, as approximately 30 percent of Peruvian adults lack any formal financial service, and only about 33 percent have access to credit.

The security challenge in open finance

While open finance offers significant benefits, it also involves the handling of highly sensitive user data. One of its key challenges is ensuring that the individual granting access is indeed the rightful data owner. Only under this condition can the system be secure, reliable, and user-friendly. In this context, biometrics is emerging as the most robust method for user identification, outperforming traditional approaches such as passwords or one-time passcodes, particularly in the era of deepfakes. This obligation is increasingly regulatory, not just operational. Brazil’s LGPD mandates strict data protection in any consent-based data sharing. Mexico’s CNBV has embedded digital identity requirements into open banking provisions under its Fintech Law. And FATF Recommendation 10 on customer due diligence requires financial institutions to verify customer identity using reliable, independent sources — a standard biometric verification is purpose-built to meet.

In recent years, deepfakes have advanced considerably due to improvements in hardware, access to large datasets, and increasingly sophisticated models. In this environment, solutions such as those offered by Identy.io, featuring multimodal biometrics with passive liveness detection, combine multiple biometric factors, including face and fingerprint, with artificial intelligence to enable secure and seamless identity verification. Passive liveness runs silently in the background — no blinking prompts, no head turns, no user friction. The system confirms that the person presenting their biometric is real, live, and present before any data access is granted.

Secure mobile-first biometrics as the scalable solution

Identy.io’s mobile-first approach is designed from the ground up to operate autonomously in mobile environments. This allows banks, fintechs, and digital platforms to integrate its capabilities easily through an SDK, without increasing operational costs or requiring additional hardware. Its verification system runs directly on the user’s device and provides an intuitive and user-friendly experience. Moreover, the process is fully touchless and requires only a smartphone’s standard camera and flash, even on low-end devices.

Unlike many alternatives on the market, by default, Identy.io process and stores biometric data on the user’s device itself, with no need to transmit sensitive information to cloud servers. This reduces the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access and also enables reliable operation in remote areas with limited connectivity.

Finally, to operate within the open finance ecosystem, Identy.io complies with the highest security standards, including those established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST. It supports eKYC, Know Your Customer, processes and AML, Anti-Money Laundering, frameworks, and adheres to the ISO/IEC 30107-3 standard for Presentation Attack Detection. Identy.io’s Face SDK holds independent certification at Level 2 — the highest available — tested and verified by iBeta Quality Assurance against silicone masks, 3D-printed faces, latex masks, and AI-generated deepfakes, with zero false acceptances across 1,500 attempted attacks (October 2025). The Finger SDK is separately certified at ISO/IEC 30107-3 Levels A and B. Together, these certifications ensure that the passive liveness detection underpinning every open finance interaction is independently validated, not self-declared.

Open finance without strong identity verification is an open door to fraud. The combination of passive liveness detection, on-device processing, and independently certified anti-spoofing gives financial institutions a way to meet their regulatory obligations — LGPD, FATF, CNBV — without adding friction that drives users away. As LATAM markets continue to expand access and digital onboarding volumes grow, the margin for identity errors shrinks. Want to see how passive liveness detection integrates into your open finance stack? Request a technical demo and we’ll walk you through the SDK in your environment.

La entrada Biometrics, the key to secure open finance implementation se publicó primero en identy.io.

Artificial Intelligence, cause and response to digital identity theft fraud

Rodrigo Ramos — Thu, 14 May 2026 10:35:19 +0000

Over the last few years, Artificial Intelligence has become one of the most recognized and widely used technologies, not only by end users, but also by companies around the world. Its ability to quickly solve complex problems and automate tasks has put this technology in the spotlight, to such an extent that consulting firms such as McKinsey, in their report “State of AI in 2025,” already point out that 88% of companies use Artificial Intelligence in at least one function of their business.

However, the unstoppable advance of this technology has also attracted the attention of cybercriminals, who have found in it a way to carry out increasingly sophisticated and complicated attempts at impersonation and identity theft, which has a significant economic impact on their victims, but also on public and private entities. In fact, Deloitte’s projections indicate that fraud caused by artificial intelligence will have an impact of more than $40 billion worldwide by 2027, a figure that reveals its importance to the global economy.

From fraud using masks and photos to deepfakes

How is AI used to carry out these frauds and identity thefts? Until now, criminals have used what are known as presentation attacks, in which they use a high-definition printed photograph, a silicone mold to replicate the victim’s fingerprint with great precision, or simply a mask to try to bypass security filters. However, the emergence of AI has also led to the appearance of what are known as deepfakes, digitally generated biometric forgeries that emulate facial features or voices with great realism.

Deep neural networks are used to create these digital doubles with the aim of circumventing any protective measures. According to the “Human Detection of Deepfakes: An Investigation of Confidence and Accuracy” report, the human eye is only capable of detecting 24.5% of deepfakes, which means that seven out of ten go unnoticed. Not even processes in which identity verification is carried out via video calls are safe, due to AI’s ability to inject these deepfakes into real-time video streams, for example.

Technology has become so sophisticated that images generated by this technology are capable of blinking or performing predefined movements, so that even detection by liveness verification systems—that is, systems used by many entities in their onboarding process to verify that the user is real by asking them to move their head in a certain direction or blink in a specific way—does not offer excessive guarantees. And the consequences could have a far-reaching impact, allowing the opening of fraudulent bank accounts, unauthorized transactions, withdrawals from retirement funds, or the acquisition of medical treatments that belong to another user.

One high-profile example: in early 2024, a finance employee at a Hong Kong-based firm was deceived by a deepfake video call impersonating her head of finance and several colleagues, leading her to authorize a transfer of $25 million USD to fraudsters. Real-world example grounds the threat in a concrete, verifiable incident. The Hong Kong deepfake fraud (5M, January 2024) was widely covered by Reuters, BBC, and financial press. Concrete cases land harder with a banking audience than abstract descriptions.

AI as part of the solution to deepfakes and identity theft

While the technology used by criminals has evolved rapidly, so too has the technology used by entities such as Identy.io to prevent theft and identity theft. One of the most important in this regard is passive liveness detection, a solution designed specifically to detect cases in which a third party is attempting to breach the security systems implemented by a public or private entity and use this identity fraud for fraudulent purposes.

How does passive liveness testing work? This technology does not require the user to interact directly with the system. In other words, it does not need the user to perform movements predefined by the system in order to differentiate between a real user and a digital double. The passive variant runs in the background, attempting to detect signs of life in a single frame or video sequence, using AI models trained to detect nuances in skin texture, lighting, facial micro-movements, or natural responses in the user.

So, is it necessary to do away with systems that use fingerprints as the sole security measure? No. The truth is that fingerprint biometrics is recognized as a reliable form of authentication, although with the evolution of technology, it is increasingly common to find multimodal or multi-factor forms of authentication, in which passive liveness testing using facial features becomes an additional layer of security against fraud. This is especially true considering that many modern fingerprint sensors already incorporate their own liveness tests, detecting sweat on the skin or pulse, for example.

The technology developed by Identy.io, in addition to featuring the latest advances in passive liveness detection, has the advantage of processing all of the user’s personal and biometric information directly on their mobile device, thus avoiding the need for expensive biometric scanners and trips to their locations. With just a mobile phone equipped with a simple camera and flash, the system is able to detect the user’s fingerprints or face, carry out the necessary passive life sign checks, and store the user’s personal information on the same mobile phone, under the highest encryption standards, completely safe from possible attacks or identity theft.

Identy.io’s passive liveness detection has been independently certified to NIST ISO 30107-3 Level 2 — the industry’s most rigorous Presentation Attack Detection standard — achieving a perfect score. This certification is particularly relevant for banking and fintech institutions that must demonstrate compliance with increasingly stringent KYC and AML regulations, and for telecom operators facing SIM swap fraud and subscriber identity verification at onboarding.

As we can see, at a time when artificial intelligence has become an ever-evolving threat, the same technology also becomes a guarantee that the user’s personal data will be properly protected and safe from the use of deepfakes or digital doubles.

La entrada Artificial Intelligence, cause and response to digital identity theft fraud se publicó primero en identy.io.