Entrust Datacard released its IdentityGuard Virtual Appliance, enabling organizations to defend against enterprise level cyber attacks; MorphoTrust achieved SAFETY Act certification; the Smart Card Alliance announced Securing Federal Identity 2016, in Washington this June.

The Nymi band has received a lot of attention since it was first announced three-years ago. The wearable, biometric band uses an individual’s electro cardiogram for authentication and then transmits the credential using NFC or BLE for physical or logical access.

Phil Dumas went on ABC’s Shark Tank to get funding for Unikey, his company that focuses on the user experience with mobile physical access control. Unikey has been focused on the residential market but is starting to expand into the commercial arena.

Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou will retire from the at the end of August and Philippe Vallée, currently chief operating officer will succeed him; the Kantara Initiative announced that it has changed its entity type by filing Articles of Conversion; there are now more than 150 FIDO Certified products, up 50% in just one quarter; new Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks will be equipped with OPTIGA Trusted Platform Module chips from Infineon Technologies; Suprema unveiled its BioStation L2 fingerprint terminal.

Creating a new credential can be a challenge for issuers. The most educated organizations, such as government issuers have challenges, but they also bring the most resources to bear. At the mid-level, organizations such as financial issuers are beginning to consider more durable card materials, but the vast majority of small to mid-volume issuers lack even basic education on material options.

AVISIAN Publishing is pleased to announce the release of the interactive version of the Spring 2016 Regarding ID magazine. Highlights include: physical access control goes to the cloud, DOD web site kills the password and states speeding toward mobile driver licenses.

Banks wants to make it easy for consumers to open new accounts online but they have to comply with Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering regulations making online identity vetting crucial. These requirements are at odds as a European consumer survey revealed that 40% abandoned banking application because they were too time consuming and required too much personal information.

eBay announced its membership in the FIDO Alliance and deployment of a FIDO Certified open source authentication server; Gemalto is offering private sector enterprises, such as banks and mobile operators, a new ID verification solution; NEC Corporation of America and Government Acquisitions Inc. announced delivery of the NeoScan45 mobile identification technology to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; HID Global announced the availability of its latest Direct-to-Card Printer/Encoder.

With concerns surrounding how to authenticate an identity online there are few options. This is changing and Confirm.io has built functionality that enables companies to build driver license verification into a mobile application.

ABI Research forecasts the global biometrics market will reach more than $30 billion by 2021; Vision-Box is providing facial recognition technology to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for a deployment at three JFK arrival terminals; Infineon Technologies AG in collaboration with Mobile Payment Solutions Co. Ltd. have launched a new NFC security module series designed for fitness trackers and other wearables.