The Biometric Update Podcast

Ep. 39: Wizz joins the Tech Coalition as online safety regs escalate

Wizz, a French social chat platform for young people, recently became one of the few European members of the Tech Coalition, a collection of companies working together to prevent online child exploitation. In this episode, Alexandra Ryabova, Head of Ops for Wizz, and Sean Litton, CEO of Tech Coalition, talk about about how the industry is approaching online safety as regulations roll out.

Ep. 38: Why Marshall scholar Ben Fischer didn't sign the open letter on age assurance

Ben Fischer is a Marshall scholar who graduated from Stanford University, and is now at the University of Edinburgh studying the technical and social implications of privacy preserving age assurance. He had a chance to sign an open letter from a group of scientists, calling for a moratorium on age assurance laws globally. He chose not to sign it. In this episode, he explains why. 

Ep. 37: Fraud in the hiring pipeline, with Deepanker Saxena of Socure

It used to be that good help was hard to find. These days, real help is hard to find. Amplified by AI, fraud attacks target every part of the hiring pipeline, from fake resumes to deepfake interviews. In this episode, Socure's Head of Product Deepanker Saxena takes us into the world of hiring fraud. 

The Trust Files: Michael Nash of World Ethical Data Foundation

The way digital identity is commonly presented – as a tool for protecting against fraud and other benign uses – is different from how it’s being built, according to World Ethical Data Foundation Director of Institutional Programming Michael Nash.
Nash tells The Trust Files, presented by Velvet and Biometric Update, that digital ID is redesigning how people are allowed to live their lives, without fixing the problems it was intended to solve.

Ep. 36: To Identity and Beyond: How Trulioo's Hal Lonas applies aeronautics to fighting fraud

Hal Lonas thought he might like to be an astronaut. So he studied aeronautics. But he got bored. 
The world of identity fraud moves faster than just about any sector, so Hal has found a suitable challenge as the CTO of Trulioo. In this episode, he talks about how to stay ahead of the bad guys when you're fighting fraud on a cosmic scale. 

The Trust Files: David Crack of SafeGuarden on data cooperatives

Cooperatives emerged as a reaction to the excesses of the industrial revolution. In the digital context, an equivalent can give people control and ownership over their own data while benefitting local communities, SafeGuarden Co-founder and Chair of CDD Services David Crack.
Data cooperatives offer the opportunity to reuse the data for proof of age or to share a range of credentials, Crack says I the latest episode of The Trust Files.

Ep. 35: Age assurance standards move into focus ahead of 2026 global summit

Tony Allen is busy organizing the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit, coming to Manchester from April 12-14, 2026. But he took some time to give the Biometric Update Podcast a preview of some festival highlights, as well as his thoughts on how age assurance legislation is unfolding in Australia and the UK -- and, on chairs. 

The Trust Files: Kartik Venkatesh of GBG

In a contribution to The Trust Files, presented by Velvet and Biometric Update, Venkatesh argues credentials are just one piece in the larger continuous trust machine. He explains the urgency of the situation and the other pieces of the system needed to scale AI safely.

Ep. 34: Conversations from MOSIP Connect 2026

Conversations from on the ground at MOSIP Connect 2026 in Rabat, Morocco. Biometric Update Managing Editor Chris Burt talks digital identity, inclusion, interoperability and biometrics with Andrew Musoke of CMU Africa and Digvijay Kanwar of Next Biometrics. 

The Trust Files: Adam Rusbridge of Ping Identity

The agent economy is replacing the digital economy the world is still adjusting to, Ping Identity Group Product Manager Adam Rusbridge says in the new episode of The Trust Files, from Velvet and Biometric Update.
But unauthenticated AI agents represent a trust gap in this new three-actor system, according to Rusbridge. He suggests the paradigm shift requires a universal trust layer to enable visibility and governance, which fortunately can be achieved by extending zero-trust identity foundations. It is an evolution, he says, not a revolution.