News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

Start-up develops new gait technology

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Plantiga Technologies, a start-up company based in Vancouver, has announced the development of a new security and defense technology utilizing gait biometrics. The new system is based on footwear that generates walking and movement patterns, or gait patterns, that are communicated to a system that identifies the individual based on their biometric profile.

The usage of footwear to communicate gait information to a system is what makes the new technology different from other gait biometric systems which depend on visual analysis of an individual’s gait via cameras.


One of the major advantages over other systems that Plantiga is touting in their new system is that it is capable of identifying a person at any time no matter where they are.

Due to this, the company sees its technology as having benefits beyond basic identification wherein their system could help track personnel behavior by recording where they have been, what they have been doing and when they were doing it. The new technology is in its product development stage, but Plantiga expects a working prototype ready by this fall. [end] 

AVISIAN Publishing is pleased to announce the release of the interactive version of the fall 2011 issue of Regarding ID.

The interactive feature enables a miniature mode that you can thumb through as well as a full screen mode that allows you to read the magazine as if it were on the desk in front of you.

read more »

Gait biometrics enable identification and authentication

By Jill Jaracz, Contributing Editor, AVISIAN Publications

“I know his gait, ‘tis he.–Villain, thou diest!”

– Othello, act V, scene 1

read more »

Researchers from the University of Notre Dame have begun researching a facial-recognition-based system they are calling a Questionable Observer Detector that would be able to identify criminals returning to the scene of the crime, according to a Network World article.

read more »

A Wikileaks document released in December details a biometric-based device that would identify anyone that steps on it that is being developed by the Chinese government, according to a CNN GO article. The devices, which are being called spy pads, would work via gait biometrics, or the unique build of individuals combined with their stance or cycle of steps.

read more »

Mark Nixon, a professor of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton, is having his research on gait biometrics and the progress it has made over the years featured as part of the Planet Earth series on the Discovery Channel, according to a report from the University of Southampton.

read more »

Five police agencies around the U.S. have been utilizing a handheld, fingerprint-based biometric scanner as part of an FBI pilot program of its FBI Next Generation Identification System, according to a Pittsburg Post Gazette article.

read more »