Tag Archives: biometric

When the Games Stopped: March 11, 2020

In late 2019 and early 2020 I was working on a project promoting biometric entry at sports facilities and concert venues…until a teeny little worldwide pandemic shut down all the sport and concert venues.

Some of you may remember that a pivotal day during that period was March 11, 2020. Among many many other things, this was the day on which basketball fans awaited the start of a game.

“8 p.m. [ET; 7 p.m. local time]: In Oklahoma City, it was just another game day for Nerlens Noel and his Thunder teammates, who were warming up to play the visiting Utah Jazz.”

The day soon became abnormal after a meeting between NBA officials and the two coaches. Unbeknownst to the crowd, the officials and coaches were discussing a medical diagnosis of Rudy Gobert. (That’s another story.)

“8:31 p.m. [ET]: Teams were sent back to their locker rooms but the crowd at Chesapeake Energy Arena weren’t informed of the cancellation immediately. Instead, recording artist Frankie J, the intended halftime entertainment, put on his show, while officials decided how to break the news.”

Eight minutes later, the crowd was instructed to leave the arena.

Twenty minutes after that, the NBA suspended all games.

Imagen 4.

A little over a month later, on April 19, millions of people were huddled in their homes, glued to the opening episode of a TV series called The Last Dance…the only basketball any of us were going to get for a while. And of course, these games were on decades-long tape delay, and we already knew the outcome. (The Chicago Bulls won.)

And that was our basketball…until the suspended season resumed on July 30 under very bizarre circumstances.

Anyway, all of that was a very long time ago.

Imagen 4.

Games and concerts have been back in business since 2021, and identity verification and authentication of venue visitors with biometrics and other factors is becoming more popular every year.

Drew Mabry Recommends a Human in the Loop: Trust Me, It’s Critically Important

I’m conducting an experiment in which an AI bot, “Bredebot,” is writing on the Bredemarket blog and on LinkedIn with almost no restrictions.

Don’t do this at home. It’s not a good idea.

This post describes an example in which Bredebot misses a critically important point about Bredemarket’s target audience in the identity/biometric industry.

Bredebot reacts to Drew Mabry

Earlier today, I asked Bredebot to write a post analyzing a Drew Mabry quote:  

“The true competitive advantage isn’t the Al tools themselves but how you use them. Your unique processes for data capture, knowledge management, and building trust are the real ‘moat.’ Al becomes powerful when it’s integrated with your proprietary insights and context, making your approach impossible to replicate.”

Moat. I like that. Imagen 4 (via Bredebot.)

Mabry also advocates including a human in the loop: his firm, Fast + Light, always asks at least one human (preferably two) to review all AI-generated content.

In my Bredebot experiment, I rarely edit what Bredebot says. If you know me, it’s very obvious that Bredebot wrote this and I didn’t.

“Building Trust: In the identity and biometrics space, trust isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s paramount. If customers don’t trust you with their most sensitive data, you simply don’t have a business. Your processes for privacy, security, transparency, and ethical AI usage are not just compliance requirements; they are fundamental differentiators. How you communicate these efforts, how you manage data breaches (heaven forbid!), and how you constantly reinforce your commitment to security are all part of this trust-building moat. This is where your wombat customers, usually burrowing away, will emerge to praise (or criticize) your efforts.”

While I certainly agree with the sentiment, and obviously don’t mind the reference to wombats, I would have made one change.

The t word

I would have modified Bredebot’s use of the T word. Just because Mabry used it doesn’t mean that Bredebot has to do the same.

Why not? Because the word “trust” is massively overused in the identity/biometric industry. So much so that you can’t tell one company from another.

Imagen 4.

“Now perhaps some of you would argue that trust is essential to identity verification in the same way that water is essential to an ocean, and that therefore EVERYBODY HAS to use the t-word in their communications. 

“Don’t tell that to Black Ink Tech, who uses the trademark ‘Truth Over Trust.’

“And no, they didn’t violate any law by using an unapproved word. Instead, they got attention by standing out from the crowd.”

And identity/biometric firms are the primary hungry people (target audience) for the Bredemarket blog.

So I definitely would have edited that paragraph.

So why didn’t I?

Changing the subject

I’m going to dodge that question by asking you one.

Do you need an experienced human to help your identity, biometric, or technology organization product marketing?

  • Strategy and/or tactics?
  • Content and/or proposals and/or analysis?

Visit this page to set up a free meeting with Bredemarket. I’ll ask some questions to get things moving.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

The Transitive Property, Technology, Biometrics, Content, and Product

Follow along.

If I am the technology product marketing expert…

…and if I am the biometric product marketing expert…

…and if content marketing and product marketing significantly overlap…

…then I am not only the biometric content marketing expert…

…but am also the technology content marketing expert.

I’m claiming it all.

Technology Product Marketing Expert

Are you a technology marketing leader, struggling to market your products to your prospects for maximum awareness, consideration, and conversion?

I’m John E. Bredehoft. For over 30 years, I’ve created strategy and tactics to market technical products for over 20 B2B/B2G companies and consulting clients.

But my past isn’t as important as your present challenges. Let’s talk about your specific needs and how I would approach solving them.

Consulting: Bredemarket at https://bredemarket.com/mark/

Employment: LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/jbredehoft/

Technology product marketing expert.

Battling deepfakes with…IAL3?

(Picture designed by Freepik.)

The information in this post is taken from the summary of this year’s Biometrics Institute Industry Survey and is presented under the following authority:

“You are welcome to use the information from this survey with a reference to its source, Biometrics Institute Industry Survey 2025. The full report, slides and graphics are available to Biometrics Institute members.”

But even the freebie stuff is valuable, including this citation of two concerns expressed by survey respondents:

“Against a backdrop of ongoing concerns around deepfakes, 85%
agreed or agreed strongly that deepfake technology poses a
significant threat to the future of biometric recognition, which
was similar to 2024.
“And two thirds of respondents (67%) agreed or agreed strongly
that supervised biometric capture is crucial to safeguard against
spoofing and injection attacks.”

Supervised biometric capture? Where have we heard that before?

IAL3 requires “[p]hysical presence” for identity proofing. However, the proofing agent may “attend the identity proofing session via a CSP-controlled kiosk or device.” In other words, supervised enrollment.

Now remote supervised enrollment and even in-person supervised enrollment is not a 100.00000% guard against deepfakes. The subject could be wearing a REALLY REALLY good mask. But it’s better than unsupervised enrollment.

How does your company battle deepfakes?

How do you tell your clients about your product?

Do you need product marketing assistance? Talk to Bredemarket.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

How to Increase Awareness of Your Company’s Offerings With Blog Posts (A Repurpose)

How can blog posts increase the awareness of your identity/biometric or technology company’s products and services? I’m going to explain how in this blog post. 

By the way, this is a rewrite of my more technical Tuesday blog post “How Can Your Technology Company Increase Product Benefit Awareness Right Now?” Because you can rewrite blog posts when you feel like it.

Why a funnel?

Imagine there’s a funnel. It’s easy if you try. But this funnel doesn’t stream water, but people. (Or wombats.)

The funnel. Imagen 4.

In this funnel, the people (or wombats) who are potentially interested in your offering—your prospects—start at the very top. The few who actually buy your offering emerge from the bottom. 

But how do you get people to enter the funnel and become aware of your offering?

How can blog posts help you?

One great way to let people know about your offering is by blog posts such as this one. 

Blogs are a fast way to tell your prospects how your offering can help them. And you can create blog posts very quickly, within days or even hours. 

If you want to make prospects aware of your company’s service, write a blog post.

What can Bredemarket offer to you?

One of Bredemarket’s offerings is…writing blog posts for other companies. I can help your identity/biometric or technology company write blog posts so you can get more people to learn about your services.

If you want to learn how I can help your company write blog posts, visit bredemarket.com/mark.

When IAI Attendees Say “Orlando” to Their Biometric Hungry People

There are times when the same word will have vastly different meanings to different people.

Such as biometrics and biometrics.

And Orlando and Orlando.

If your company employs biometrics to identify people rather than to monitor their health readings, then you don’t care about the Orlando where visitors wear hats with mouse ears.

You care about the Orlando where forensic professionals are gathered this week for the 2025 International Association for Identification Forensic Educational Conference.

Find the people hungry for your services by seeing who is paying attention to the #IAIConference hashtag on your favorite social channels.

These are the ones who will salivate over things like “Appendix F.”

This is your niche.

Speak to them.

And if you need assistance with content services to address your hungry people, Bredemarket can help.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers

Identity Assurance Level 3 (IAL3): When Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) Isn’t Good Enough

(Picture designed by Freepik.)

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

I’ve talked about Identity Assurance Levels 1, 2, and 3 on several occasions. Most notably regarding Login.gov’s initial failure to adhere to Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2). (Old news; after the pilot, Login.gov is now certified for IAL2.)

But as usually happens, IAL2 is yesterday’s news. Because biometric tech always gets harder better faster stronger.

Refresher on IAL1, IAL2…and IAL 3

Let’s review the three identity assurance levels.

From https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63a.html#sec2.

For our purposes, the big difference between IAL2 and IAL3 is that IAL2 allows “either remote or physically-present identity proofing,” while IAL3 requires “[p]hysical presence” for identity proofing. However, the proofing agent may “attend the identity proofing session via a CSP-controlled kiosk or device.” In other words, supervised enrollment.

When do you need IAL3? Mitek’s Adam Bacia clarifies:

“IAL3 is reserved for high-risk environments such as sensitive government services.”

How are solutions approved for a particular Identity Assurance Level?

Now I could get on my product marketing soapbox and loudly proclaim that my service is IAL2 compliant, or IAL3 compliant, or IAL4 compliant. (“What? You don’t know about IAL4? Obviously you’re not authorized to know about it.”)

But I doubt you would, um, trust my declaration.

Enter the Kantara Initiative, which manages an Identity Assurance Approval Process. For our purposes, we want to focus on the NIST 800-63 rev.3 class of approval:

“Available to Credential Service Providers offering Full or Component Credential Management Services. Modeled on best practice (drawing from, among other sources, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 29115), this Class of Approval ensures the provider organization’s good standing and management / operational practices and assesses criteria which are derived strictly from NIST SP 800-63 rev.3 requirements, ensuring a conformant technical provision of the provider organization’s service.

“Assurance Levels: IAL2, IAL3; AAL2, AAL3; FAL2, FAL3”

  • You see that the Kantara Initiative doesn’t even offer an approval for IAL1, just for IAL2 and IAL3.
  • It also offers approvals for AAL2 and AAL3. I’ve previously discussed Authenticator Assurance Levels (AALs) in this post. Briefly, IALs focus on the initial identity proofing, while AALs focus on the authentication of a proven identity.
  • And you can also see that it offers approvals for FAL2 and FAL3. I’ve never discussed Federation Assurance Levels (FALs) before.

Component Services IAL2 approvals…and an IAL3 approval

Now if you go to the Kantara Initiative’s Trust Status List and focus on the Component Services, you’ll see a number of companies and their component services which are approved for NIST 800-63 rev.3 and offer an assurance level of IAL2.

With one exception.

“NextgenID Trusted Services Solution provides Supervised Remote Identity Proofing identity stations to collect, review, validate, proof, and package IAL-3 identity evidence and enrollment data for CSPs operating at IAL-3. The NextGenID TSS Identity Stations enable remote operators to remotely supervise NIST SP 800-63A compliant Supervised Remote Identity Proofing (SRIP) sessions for credentialing.”

So if remote identity assurance is not good enough for you, there’s a solution. I’ve already discussed NextgenID’s SUPERVISED remote identity proofing in this post. And there’s a video.

Trust Swiftly has also designed a remote IAL3 solution, but I couldn’t find Trust Swiftly on the Kantara Initiative’s Trust Status List. Perhaps it was processed under another accredited assessor.

But clearly biometric product marketers are paying attention to the identity assurance levels…at least the real ones (not IAL4). But are they communicating benefit-oriented messages to their prospects?

Biometric product marketing has to be targeted to the right people, with the right message. And the biometric product marketing expert at Bredemarket can help a company’s marketing organization create effective content. Talk to Bredemarket.

Stop losing prospects! Use Bredemarket content for tech marketers