‘Imagine living in a future where the crimes are being averted before even them taking place, the sales associates are in your beck and call, the phone, car, computer, house everything gets unlocked through facial recognition.’
INTRODUCTION
A biometric identifier is a tool that has the main intention of computing the physical characteristics of people which in turn will get recorded in the database. This information helps in verifying the identity of the person and can even help in checking it against the other records in the database. These biometric identification systems tend to form groups that would be created based on physical characteristics such as hand geometry, the iris scan, face recognition, voice analysis, and many more. It is a challenging task to form a fake biometric ID.
Soon the biometric identification will help in providing the world with an unblemished identity management system that will ripen self-sufficiently in the nation-states. The administrative agencies need to provide the citizens of the country with the kind of service they expect. Therefore, there is a need for the government to control and operate a sound ID management solution. Now even companies are in a need of biometric identification systems so that they can form a controlled form of access in the workplace.
The Benefits and the Detriments of biometrics in the current Digital Era.
In these new times, biometric authentication and verification have become an essential part of the prevailing technology. It is being used every day by people in some or the other way for instance at the airport for getting whisked through the security lines or even when unlocking the phones. Most biometrics require physiological biometrics such as thumbprints or facial recognition.
These biometric data are storming and are being accepted worldwide in almost every aspect of contemporary lives. The main issue that arises is safety and privacy which is hampering or making lives easier by the users who are furnishing these biometrics to the businesses and the government sector for their utilization is the biggest question.
THE M&A BUSTLE
The biometric and the identification sector have been subjected to a dynamic merger and acquisitions market in past few years. This trend was held true in 2013 and was continued in 2014 as this sector is growing at an expeditious rate. The acquisitions of the middle market companies are continuing as the start-ups are growing and the brand differentiated businesses are being given support by the high-profile IP portfolios. Various firms among these have grown to such extent that they are now eligible to attract the buyers and if provided with some additional resources and reach of a larger parent company they can further advance themselves. The M&A activities in the industry are elevated due to the strong market growth, the growth of the international markets, the advancements in technology, and the increase in commercial applications.
THE MARKET GROWTH HURLS OUT THE M&A ACTIVITY
The main motive of the M&A activity in the sector of biometrics and the identification is to encourage the growth of the sector and increasing the sale and purchase of these products and services. The biometrics technological market was projected to grow USD 36.6 billion in 2020 to USD 68.6 billion by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate of over 13.4%. the fast pace of the market growth is increasing the security as well as the identity theft threats in the entire world but is attracting private equity as well as corporate buyers. The largest share in the market is being held by the non- AFIS which is about 41% because of their economic price and convenience to consumers. It is expected that the iris technology will grow at an excessive rate which will compound to 29% in 2025 because of its distinctiveness and its precision. The market is fragmented into healthcare, government & defence, commercial safety, banking and finance, and consumer electronics. The highest share in the use of biometrics is held by the transportation sector such as airports and railways which amounts to 29% of the entire market. The government has even started to accept the profits which arise due to biometrics identification and has boosted its usage.
The administrative authorities from across the globe are increasing the use of biometrics and putting them into usage for increasing the security in the airports and the borders for the production of more secure identity documents. The United States government is the world biggest user of biometric-based technologies for verification given their increase in security concerns. The industry has been given a boost due to an increase in the requirements of the security of the public such as the internet and network access, national identity, e-passports, etc.
THE PROGRESSION IN TECHNOLOGY HAS CAUSED AN OUTGROWTH IN M&A ACTIVITY
The progression in the field of technology is helping the M&A activity to grow as the consumers can approach the tools and the technology which is, in turn, improving the value and the affordability of the biometric devices. The expression biometrics is referred to as an extensive assortment of applications which include voice verification, iris verification, smart cards, criminal ids, etc. The technology is doing a huge advancement in the product sectors so that they can make these products dependable and are easy to use. These types of features are necessary as the product is used by the government and the public sectors to the commercial and consumer sectors.
The industries and the M&A activity are growing at a very fast rate as these biometrics are coming into the integration with electronic devices such as computers, mobile phones, etc. because the consumers are keen to make investments in these devices. The biometrics used in the mobiles are the most targeted because they are the ones that are pushing the technological envelope the most. The other physical biometrics which include fingerprints, iris verification, facial recognitions are used most in the buildings because they necessitate a special kind of hardware that is high priced and required in large quantities due to which they discordant to the mobile phones.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BIOMETRIC-BASED INTELLIGENT AUTHENTICATION IN THE M&A SECTOR
In recent times there was a witness in a mad dash for solution providers in Intelligent Authentication (IAuth) and fraud prevention to fill out their “primary” abilities voice and/or behavioral biometrics. It has been a long-time approach and is best illustrated by Mitek’s agreement to buy ID Research and development for a possible $49 million.
As Alexey Khitrov, founder of ID Research & Development revealed the companies had pulled collectively for a few years and learned, as mutual customers necessitated a coordinated procedure to submitting a frictionless user experience for user authentication over mobile devices, they were more suitable off operating unitedly than as partners. Mitek is an openly traded expert in mobile identification with over $100 million in revenue. This is not enormous when linked to many of the rulers in the ID and verification.
PROVE-UNIFYID MERGER
A company that was initially known as the payfone and is now largely recognized as proving has successfully raised a huge amount of revenue from the venture investors in the year 2020. Now they have applied some amount of that capital in the acquisition of the unifyID. This acquisition has proved to be highly beneficial as it will bring into behavioral biometrics such as gait analysis in fraud prevention. Before the acquisition proves was popular for the “phone-centric identity” which refers to the aggregation of data about phone numbers that could assist the companies in the detection and the prevention of fraud.
The UnifyID has leveraged investment in marshalling behavioral biometrics technologies, such as gait analysis, to build tremendous reliance that the person on the phone is who he or she demands to be. Since its establishment in 2015, UnifyID has superseded in getting its software established on 34 million devices. The two companies attained themselves collectively tendering on occasions during the pandemic and have formed a seamless combination of their two technologies which now grants enduring, dynamic biometric authentication.
TRUEFACE-PANGIAM MERGER
The merger of trueface and pangiam was a public-private partnership whose main motive was to modernize the operations of the future, the safety and security measures at the airports, seaports, and border crossings. This proves that how immensely and deeply this passive biometric authentication will take over in the travel vertical.
Since October 2020 trueface is the second acquisition of Pangiam after it acquires the metropolitan Washington airport authority. This acquisition will be forming new solutions for the safety and expediency in the airports and the other travel venues by the introduction of computer vision and the use of biometrics which will have their primary focus on facial recognition, verification of age, and the detection of weapons. Pangiam will have its emphasis on machine vision and the recognition of faces so that it can speed up the processes throughout the world.
THE GLOBAL DEMAND OF IAUTH
The mergers taking place universally are done due to the demand for speedy, friction-free, and ID verification which is safe and is user authentic. Today industry fraud prevention and customer experience professionals create their IAuth and fraud prevention explications gradually. They expand everything they comprehend to be “best-of-breed technologies for identification control, authentication, and fraud prevention resolutions from a list of diverse merchants. The recently merged corporations acknowledge that banks, brokerages, healthcare providers, airports, administration agencies, and, finally, retailers will shift from start-ups and look toward more substantial companies with an extensive variety of IAuth and fraud prevention solutions.
The Microsoft acquisition of the nuance had played a vital role in the speeding up of the identification that one of the largest IT, CRM collaboration has the authority to bring voice, face, and behavioural biometrics in space of authenticity. In the field of digital commerce, IAuth and
Fraud will be the most important ones. The firms will be provided with the proper solutions which will, in turn, give assurance to the enterprises that they can bring the research and development investments into the conventional world.
A WAY FORWARD
In the long run, biometric identification guarantees to provide the global resident with a reliable identity management system, which could originate autonomously of nation-states. Of course, one could claim that this would be a misfortune and that an ID management resolution managed and performed by authorities is necessary for management agencies to implement the assistance citizens require to secure and to ensure the durability of the same concept of state.
The continuous history of identification systems explains to us that identification has nevermore been a minor matter but has always involved a network of financial interests, political connections, symbolic arrangements, stories, and meanings.
Biometrics could offer to give a face to the abundance of faceless people who exist in emerging countries, committing to turning these unknown, dispersed, feeble, masses into the new global citizens. Unquestionably, then, there are grounds for the moral and civic concerns encompassing biometrics; but these objects are fortuitously coordinated by some reasons for concern.
The biometric and the identification sector have been subjected to a dynamic merger and acquisitions market in past few years. The acquisitions of the middle market companies are continuing as the start-ups are growing and the brand differentiated businesses are being given support by the high-profile IP portfolios. Various firms among these have grown to such extent that they are now eligible to attract the buyers and if provided with some additional resources and reach of a larger parent company they can further advance themselves.