The Biometrics Institute has released Three Laws of Biometrics to guide the development and deployment of biometric technologies. The idea is inspired by Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, though the Laws themselves have obviously been updated to reflect concerns about a different technology in a different era. According to the Institute, the Three Laws of Biometrics are Policy, Process, and Technology (PPT), and they are meant to be applied in that specific order. First, biometrics developers should make sure that the thing they want to do follows certain legal and ethical principles, which is to say that it should respect the privacy and civil liberties of the people using it. After that, developers should have internal processes in place to make sure that those policies are followed, and only then should they proceed with the development of the technology itself.

In another week that saw mainstream news dominated by the spread of COVID-19, FindBiometrics readers managed to keep the virus out of the latest top stories roundup. Instead, this week's collection of our most popular articles is dominated by facial recognition news, together with a bit of FinTech and a big announcement from the Department of Homeland Security. Starting with the latter, this week brought a call for submissions for the third-ever Biometric Technology Rally. This time, the DHS's Science and Technology Directorate is focused on finding solutions that can identify small groups of people within crowded environments: In FinTech news, meanwhile, FIS announced this week the launch of a new 3-D Secure payment authentication service. Another facial recognition specialist, Onfido, also got some attention with its news that it has once again been listed in CB Insights' AI 100 ranking.

HMD Global has announced that its new Nokia 2.3 smartphone is now available for pre-order in the United States. The Android 10 device offers a 6.2″ HD screen and a 13MP/2MP dual camera with a "Recommended Shot" feature that will automatically take a few additional photos before and after the camera shudder is pressed. The feature is supposed to help users select the optimal version of their photo, which is to say that it will recommend the shot in which everyone is smiling and generally looks their best. Other Nokia 2.3 highlights include a dedicated Google Assistant button and a battery that can last for up to two days thanks to its Adaptive Battery technology. The tech uses AI to gain a better understanding of a user's app behavior and optimize the performance of the phone.

An Israeli artificial intelligence startup with investments from a number of American companies including Microsoft has been linked to the biometric surveillance of Palestinians. AnyVision is an international tech company based in Israel that raised $78 million in June from an investment group including American tech giant Microsoft. One of their flagship products -- dubbed'Better Tomorrow' -- is a platform that leverages biometrics and facial recognition software to track objects and people on live video, including across independent camera feeds. NBC and Israeli news site Haaretz report that this technology is at the centre of a military surveillance operation focused in the West Bank at "at least 27 checkpoints", according to a statement from the Israeli Defence Forces from February. The aim of the operation is to "upgrade the crossings" and "deter terror attacks" using a network of 1,700 cameras featuring biometric and facial recognition capabilities.

The inaugural MIT AI Policy Congress recently convened in Massachusetts, bringing together leading researchers, industry insiders, and policy experts for a series of discussions about the future of artificial intelligence. Hosted by MIT's Internet Policy Research Initiative (IPRI) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the conversation stressed the importance of collaboration and ethical behavior in the developing field. The key takeaway is that businesses, governments, and private citizens will need to work together to craft sensible regulations around the use of AI. "The right interaction between computer science, government, and society at large will help shape the development of new technology to address society's needs," said Daniel Weitzner, the founding director of IPRI. "There is simply too much at stake for all of us not to have a say," added R. David Edelman, IPRI's Director of the Project on Technology, the Economy, and National Security. The trouble, of course, is that different fields will incorporate AI in different ways, each of which will require different policy solutions.

Socure CEO Sunil Madhu will discuss the powerful impact that artificial intelligence and machine learning are having on the world of financial services and online businesses at this week's Connect:ID exhibition. Entitled "Leapfrogging: The Impact of Machine Learning on ID Verification", the session is scheduled for May 1st at 10:50 a.m., and will be held in the Silver Room of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. In a statement announcing the talk, Socure asserted that AI and machine learning "far exceed human intelligence and intuition, and can verify the identity of the person on the other end of an online transaction and detect fraud." Indeed, particularly when applied to biometrics, AI and machine learning technologies are proving to be highly effective across a range of identification applications, from remote customer onboarding to mobile payments. But, as Madhu will explain in his session, "there are limitations, shortcomings and misapplications of data science which can impact results." Madhu's session promises to delve into the AI and machine learning approaches that work best.

Suprema ID is taking the opportunity of next week's ID4Africa 2018 exhibition to launch new fingerprint scanner solutions featuring liveness detection based on machine learning technology. The RealScan-D is a dual finger enrollment scanner with FBI IAFIS Appendix F certification, while the RealScan-G1 is a FAP30 enrollment scanner boasting of IP54-rated water and dust resistance. Both devices are compact and portable, and both feature a wide platen facilitating the easy collection of detailed fingerprints. Most importantly, according to Suprema, both devices feature machine learning Live Finger Detection technology designed to identify synthetic materials used in spoofing such as clay, silicon, paper, film, and rubber. In a statement, Suprema CEO Bogun Park suggested that his firm's new technology meets a market trend, explaining, "We are experiencing increasing demand for anti-spoofing technology on our live scanning devices."

NEC has developed new technology to help facilitate deep learning in its machine vision technologies, the company has announced. The technology revolves around'regularization', a concept concerning something like focus in artificial intelligence. As NEC explains, a deep learning system can become "excessively familiar" with data it is trained on, according to a statement; and this can result in the system being unable to recognize unfamiliar data. This unfortunate situation is one of "overtraining," and can adversely affect accuracy in machine vision. NEC's solution is to regulate learning in order to prevent this from happening.

Artificial intelligence is not a new concept. Sci-fi fans have been well acquainted with its principles since Isaac Asimov started getting books published, and more recently a generation that has grown up on video games has spent countless hours trying to outsmart AI entities. But in recent years AI has really come to the forefront of consumer electronics with the emergence of voice-controlled virtual assistants like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa. These have quickly become prominent user interfaces across a range of devices, and are only becoming more important as consumers seem increasingly intent on leaving typing behind. Now, the field of AI represents an escalating arms race between a number of high-profile tech companies, with some smaller firms getting in on the action, too.

PayPal may be looking into voice recognition to enable more digital commerce use cases in the near future, if a new post-MWC blog post offers any hints. Looking back on last week's event -- for which we featured extensive firsthand coverage -- PayPal Head of Global Initiatives Anuj Nayar notes two dominant trends. One is the Internet of Things, including new connected car technologies like PayPal's new car commerce feature with Shell and Jaguar (and Apple). The other, as Nayar puts it, is "conversational commerce." Looking at emerging digital commerce opportunities in areas like virtual reality, connected appliances, and even drones, Nayar asserts that it "won't be convenient or realistic to pull out a credit card or punch in your information in any of these scenarios".