World first next generation digital identification tech created in South Africa to combat identity theft
A world-first next generation identification technology has been developed in South Africa, with applications that could make it invaluable as a tool against identity theft and for law enforcement purposes.
Sixteen of Africa’s leading computervision scientists at the University of Johannesburg partnered with the private sector to develop aiDX via aiThenticate Computervision Labs.
Current identification methods such as passwords, biometrics and facial recognition continue to be thwarted by identity thieves determined to impersonate others to commit criminal acts.
The aiThenticate Computervision Labs’s technology is an advanced identification technology that uses deep science to simulate human cognition in order to confirm or determine the identity of a person to industrial grade standards on any smartphone or device equipped with a camera, according to CNBCAfrica.
The tech features extended liveness integrity checks by using artificial intelligence, ensuring authentication accuracy at a level that is not available anywhere else in the world at present.
Andre L Immelman, CEO of aiThenticate Computervision Labs, is so confident in the technology that has been developed and the massive potential it holds, that he says the company can be “the next Google”.
Identification technology that outperforms biometrics
“The human brain simply operates at a much deeper, far more advanced level than what is possible with conventional authentication methods,” Immelman said, according to ITNewsAfrica.
“Extensive field tests have shown that, as the next generation authentication technology, aiDX eclipses, and in fact, surpasses the overall performance of conventional authentication methods by a factor of some 20x on average,” he added.
While conventional biometrics, such as fingerprints, faceprints, voiceprints and irisprints, are all based on simple geometry, aiThenticate Computervision Labs’s technology mimics the way one person typically recognises another, providing a 20-fold improvement on traditional biometric methods that are currently widely used, according to the company.
Set to go to market this month, it could enjoy countless applications across a spectrum of industries.
“We anticipate that it will have applications in a wide variety of industries and market sectors, including financial services, access control, identity management, e-commerce, authorisations, grants, law enforcement, and much more – in fact any situation where the ‘who’ question is fundamentally important,” said Immelman.
Banks and financial institutions could use the tech to authenticate or identify a customer as they walk through the door, while the police could identify criminals efficiently using the same technology, catching fugitives who manage to evade the law by fooling other methods of identification.
Identity theft rates could potentially be vastly improved, as this technology would make it difficult to fool systems and pose as others.
Another impressive element of aiDX is its convenience, as it can be successfully deployed via any device that has a built in camera, such as a smartphone, and as such becomes a breakthrough that could fairly easily be applied throughout society.
The tech therefore far surpasses anything that is currently available on a mobile communications device, with levels of certainty that rival high-end laser, infrared or ultrasound security technologies.
This authentication technology is now available for use and further testing thanks to three and a half years of research and development by computervision scientists from the Hypervision Research Laboratory at the University of Johannesburg, the company revealed on LinkedIn.