GenKey’s ABIS 5.0 Complies with GDPR Article 17

GenKey’s ABIS 5.0 Complies with GDPR Article 17

October 29, 2020

Eindhoven, Accra, Chicago.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) directive on data protection and privacy that addresses various adequate ways of processing personal data within and outside the EU. The regulation aims to provide maximum control to individuals over their personal data and outlines a unifying regulatory environment for the processing of it. Article 17 of the GDPR affords individuals the right to have their personal data erased under certain predefined conditions, and mandates data processors and controllers to permanently erase such personal data once the request has been made. This is generally known as the “right to be forgotten”.

GenKey, a trusted provider of large-scale biometric identity solutions for governments and businesses, has been upgrading its software solutions in compliance with the GDPR. GenKey today announced its new ABIS 5.0 which complies fully with Article 17 of the GDPR, with the capability to permanently remove a subject’s biometric data from its systems. Whilst removing an entry in a database sounds trivial, in an advanced system like ABIS that heavily uses caching of data and cache-consistency checks, it requires a very coordinated design to perform such operations while the system is running and processing subjects.  This breakthrough with ABIS 5.0 honors GenKey’s attitude towards data protection and the privacy of clients and partners it works with.

GenKey’s ABIS 5.0 also comes with new features such as the retrieval of BioHASH® templates via a simple enquire operation. GenKey’s BioHASH® is a radically different approach to storing and comparing biometric information – it generates a reproducible, stable code from any captured biometric image, and allows for authentication without reference to the original biometric image. ABIS 5.0 also introduces an ABIS Connector and brings an update to the ABIS Dashboard: a web application view to GenKey’s ABIS biometric performance, system health, statistical information on processed subjects and their biometric properties, and other performance indicators.

Reacting to the news, GenKey’s Executive Director for R&D, who also acts as GenKey’s Data Protection Officer with oversight of the data protection needs of the company, Alty van Luijt, had this to say “We have always pursued privacy-respecting use of biometrics via our BioHASH® product range, but have now expanded that to processing in data centers that run ABIS. With an increasingly connected world, we deem it relevant to be able to permanently erase data from our systems. This amplifies GenKey’s commitment to data privacy and the provisions in the GDPR.”


About GenKey.

GenKey are experts in biometrics. Together with partners they provide a full range of digital biometric identity products, used by governments, public institutions and businesses. With over 100 million identities verified, GenKey have a proud reputation in supporting developing economies in their need to build sustainable biometric identity solutions. GenKey operate globally, with offices in Europe, Africa and the US.

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