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Welcome to ID Tech’s digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:

South Africa Demonstrates Smartphone Digital ID With Selective Sharing

South Africa’s Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has demonstrated a smartphone-based digital identity using the MyMzansi interface to showcase how citizens can selectively disclose personal attributes during verification requests. Drawn from the national population register, the demonstration displayed an identity profile alongside a Home Affairs digital ID wallet, using a QR-based exchange that lets holders choose whether to release specific fields—such as nationality, birth date, or identity number—or reject illegitimate queries outright. The demonstration follows draft regulations for an optional digital credential designed to coexist with physical Smart ID cards, featuring device binding, cryptographic protections, and biometric verification for remote enrollment under Home Affairs’ broader digital transformation strategy.

Senses Adds Facial Attendance and Engagement Analytics to Classroom Panels

Senses Electronics has launched SenseEye, an in-house facial-recognition attendance and classroom-analytics system integrated directly into its interactive teaching panels to log student presence in under a second. The hardware-embedded software matches enrolled faces to provide voice confirmations and eliminates manual roll calls, while also analyzing student engagement by generating timestamped incident reports and screenshots if sustained inattention, distraction, or sleeping persists past a two-minute threshold. While the company’s panels are installed across more than 10,500 institutions and 100,000 classrooms, Senses emphasizes that institutions retain strict control over the enrollment, storage, and deletion of facial profiles on local school servers without vendor retention.

Cambridge Plans First Live Facial Recognition Deployment

Cambridgeshire Constabulary is preparing to launch its first live facial recognition deployment in Cambridge city centre to scan crowds in real time against a designated police watchlist of wanted individuals and persons subject to court notifications. Following prior operations in Peterborough, the system matches camera-captured faces to generate alerts that must be assessed by human officers before taking any operational action, rather than relying on automated arrest determinations. The force confirmed that biometric data from individuals not generating an alert is automatically and irretrievably erased, while alert imagery is deleted immediately after use or within 24 hours.

Travel Industry Coalition Seeks EU Rules for Voluntary Biometric Journeys

A travel-industry coalition featuring ACI EUROPE, Amadeus, IATA, IDEMIA Public Security, and SITA has published a manifesto urging European Union policymakers to establish rules for voluntary biometric verification across end-to-end passenger journeys. Formulated for inclusion in the EU’s upcoming Digital Omnibus initiative, the proposal advocates for a technology-neutral legal framework that guarantees non-biometric alternatives, enables traveler opt-outs with immediate data deletion, and supports seamless digital identity checks from airport check-in to aircraft boarding.

Anthropic Faces Illinois Biometric Privacy Claims Over Claude ID Checks

Anthropic has been targeted in a proposed class action in San Francisco County Superior Court alleging that its identity verification workflow for Claude violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by extracting facial geometry without required statutory disclosures. The plaintiff claims Anthropic locked his account until he submitted driver’s license scans and live facial selfies through verification vendor Persona, arguing that Anthropic retained control over the verification purpose and appeal data without publishing a written retention schedule or destruction guidelines under Section 15 of BIPA. The lawsuit seeks statutory damages of up to $5,000 per intentional violation alongside injunctive relief, while Anthropic stated it is reviewing the complaint and maintains that user privacy is taken seriously.

Mastercard Tests Intelligence Service to Identify AI-Agent Transactions

Mastercard has initiated testing on an intelligence service within the United States designed to assess transactions initiated by artificial-intelligence agents as part of its expanding Agent Pay trust framework. The intelligence layer calculates the probability that an automated agent conducted the purchase, complementing planned future risk signals such as credential risk, merchant parameters, and consumer propensity while exploring collaborative privacy-preserving network telemetry with Cloudflare. Skyfire is supporting the framework through agent identity verification, integrating with broader initiatives like Mastercard and Google’s open-source Verifiable Intent cryptographic framework to distinguish authorized autonomous payments from fraudulent automated traffic.

UK Invites Providers to Test Machine-Readable Digital Identity Register

The UK’s Office for Digital Identities and Attributes is inviting digital-verification providers to participate in onboarding trials for a machine-readable digital identity register to enable automated verification of certified service statuses. Testing throughout October will evaluate direct API integrations using X.509 certificates and OpenID Federation alongside ISO 18013-5 mobile wallet models utilizing signed issuer and verifier lists for encrypted credential exchanges. Operating under the statutory Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, the trust framework allows participating platforms to verify adherence to government identity-proofing profiles like GPG 44 and GPG 45 before exchanging sensitive attribute data.

Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Renews Call for Facial Recognition Legislation

Scottish Biometrics Commissioner Brian Plastow has used his 2025/26 annual report to reiterate the need for primary legislation governing live facial recognition to ensure any future deployment by Police Scotland operates under strict statutory standards. Plastow emphasized that while Police Scotland has not yet deployed live facial recognition, external UK police units operating within Scotland currently fall outside his oversight, leaving critical regulatory gaps across the broader criminal justice sector. The report, which recorded zero code-of-practice breaches across existing police biometric practices, urges Scottish ministers to broaden his statutory inspection remit ahead of a mandatory legislative review due by November 30, 2026.

Naples Accountants Launch Namirial Professional Identity Wallet

The professional order for chartered accountants and accounting experts in Naples has deployed a digital identity wallet on Namirial’s platform to replace physical membership cards with real-time verifiable electronic credentials. Aligned with Italy’s IT-Wallet specifications and emerging European digital identity frameworks, the application allows accountants to instantly prove their active registration status, track continuing-education credits, access institutional courthouses via digital badges, and execute transactions using integrated certified email and qualified electronic signatures.

BEL and GoSuraksha Plan Sovereign Biometric QR Identity System

Bharat Electronics Limited has entered into a memorandum of understanding with GoSuraksha Infotech to co-develop a sovereign biometric QR digital identity system that integrates encrypted facial vectors directly onto BEL-manufactured computing hardware. The solution utilizes GoSuraksha’s DigiSuraksha technology to encode facial comparison mathematical templates directly inside encrypted QR credentials, enabling offline verification across public-sector and government applications without relying on basic web links or central database calls. Under the agreement, BEL will lead hardware manufacturing, mechanical design, and public-sector distribution while GoSuraksha supplies the proprietary cryptographic and biometric algorithms.

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team