Singapore to pioneer use of facial verification tech for national identification scheme

Singapore is set to become first country in world to use facial verification in its national identity scheme. As per a BBC report, Singapore government has said that techlogy would be ‘fundamental’ to nation’s digital ecomy and all citizens will get secure access to private as well as government services through biometric checks. 

As per reports, facial verification was piloted at a bank before Singapore government decided to roll out it nationwide. Moreover, high-tech system will t identify an individual but also verify if y are physically present. techlogy is being provided by a UK based company called iProov.

techlogy will be reportedly integrated with Singapore’s digital identity scheme called SingPass which is responsible for providing government services to citizens. iProov founder and chief executive Andrew Bud told BBC that it is ‘first time’ that a cloud-based face verification is being used to secure identities of people who are alrey using a national digital identity scheme. 

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Recognition followed by verification

According to reports, software is designed to perform both functions of first recognising identity and n verifying it with existing database. main difference is that verification comes with requirement of having exclusive consent of person. 

Bud even talked about ‘all sorts of implications’ that facial recognition techlogy can have for society including its ability to scan all faces at a train station and alerting officials if a wanted criminal walks past camera. However, critics have opined that consent is a ‘low threshold’ when it comes to dealing with a person’s sensitive biometric data and imbalance of power. 

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