Aware Sets New Bar for Biometric Trust Amid AI-Driven Fraud Wave

BURLINGTON, Mass. – February 17, 2026 – As generative AI fuels an unprecedented wave of sophisticated identity fraud, biometric technology firm Aware, Inc. is reinforcing trust in digital identity through a series of rigorous, independent validations. The company announced today that its biometric liveness and identity verification solutions have successfully passed multiple third-party evaluations, confirming their high performance, fairness, and resilience against modern, AI-driven attacks.

The announcement comes at a critical time. Digital threats like deepfakes, synthetic identities, and injection attacks—where manipulated data is pushed directly into a system, bypassing cameras and sensors—are no longer theoretical. They represent a systemic and scalable risk, driving billions in fraud losses and eroding consumer trust. For businesses, the stakes have never been higher, balancing the need for ironclad security with a seamless user experience.

“Proof of identity lives in humans, not in credentials or user IDs,” said Ajay Amlani, CEO of Aware. “Biometrics remain the only way to prove identity at the source, but deepfakes and injection attacks have become a systemic risk.” He stressed that customers should now demand compliance with industry-standard certifications to ensure maximum protection.

The New Gold Standard: Validating Defenses Against AI Attacks

In an environment where vendor claims are no longer enough, independent testing provides a crucial benchmark for performance. Aware has subjected its technology to a gauntlet of evaluations designed to assess its capabilities under realistic and challenging conditions.

The company’s Intelligent Liveness technology was evaluated by BixeLab, an NVLAP-accredited laboratory, in accordance with ISO/IEC 30107-3. This international standard for Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) is the benchmark for a system’s ability to detect spoofing attempts using artifacts like photos, masks, and advanced digital fakes. Aware’s solution demonstrated exceptional performance, achieving zero successful attacks at Levels 2 and 3, which involve more sophisticated and realistic spoofing techniques. Crucially, it did so with zero false rejections of legitimate users at Levels 1 and 2, validating its ability to thwart fraud without creating friction for valid customers.

“Independent testing is critical in liveness detection, because attack techniques evolve constantly,” said Dr. Mohamed Lazzouni, CTO of Aware. “ISO/IEC 30107-3 compliant PAD evaluation helps customers understand how a solution performs against sophisticated presentation attacks, beyond vendor claims or controlled demos.”

Further validating its real-world readiness, Aware excelled in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) 2025 Remote Identity Validation Rally (RIVR). This government-led program assesses remote identity technologies against sophisticated attacks to inform standards for both commercial and government use. Participating under the alias MTDS1, Aware was one of only five vendors to meet all of the DHS's high-performance goals in the Selfie-to-Document Match track.

Among this elite group, Aware was one of just three to achieve a zero failure-to-extract rate for both selfie and ID document images—a key indicator of reliability under diverse real-world conditions. Furthermore, the system demonstrated the lowest false match rate (FMR) among these top performers, showcasing its strength in preventing both random and targeted imposter attacks, including those using demographically similar look-alikes.

Beyond Security: Proving Fairness and Building Trust

The rise of biometrics has been accompanied by legitimate concerns about algorithmic bias, where systems may perform differently across demographic groups. Addressing this is paramount for building public trust and ensuring equitable access. Aware tackled this issue head-on by completing independent biometric bias testing through BixeLab, conforming to the ISO/IEC 19795-10 standard.

This standard is specifically designed to evaluate whether a biometric system performs consistently across different age, sex, and ethnicity groups. The evaluation confirmed that Aware’s system demonstrated no significant performance variations across the tested demographics, providing strong assurance that its liveness and matching decisions are applied fairly and reliably. This result builds upon the company’s previous top-tier performance for lack of bias in NIST’s Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) and Face Recognition Technology Evaluation (FRTE) benchmarks.

Bias in biometric systems can lead to uneven security outcomes and diminished trust, making independent testing a cornerstone of ethical technology development. “Third-party validation and bias testing play an essential role in building ethical and trustworthy biometric systems,” commented Ted Dunstone, CEO of BixeLab. “Independent assessments help the industry move toward technologies that are not only secure, but fair and transparent for the people who rely on them.”

Fortifying the Future of Authentication

The threat landscape is not limited to presentation attacks. Phishing, credential stuffing, and other password-related vulnerabilities remain a major point of failure for many organizations. To address this, Aware has also achieved FIDO2 Server Certification, validating its platform’s compliance with the FIDO Alliance standards for secure, passwordless authentication.

FIDO2 enables the use of passkeys, which replace passwords with cryptographic credentials stored securely on a user’s device. This architecture is inherently resistant to phishing and scalable automated attacks. By layering its certified Intelligent Liveness technology with FIDO2-compliant passkey authentication, Aware provides a multi-faceted defense that verifies a real, live user is present before authorizing access, creating a secure and user-friendly identity flow from onboarding to ongoing authentication.

As organizations navigate a digital world rife with AI-generated threats, the demand for proven, certified, and equitable identity solutions has become non-negotiable. Through its comprehensive and successful third-party validations, Aware has established a new benchmark for what it means to be a trusted partner in the fight against identity fraud. The company will be showcasing its certified technologies at the upcoming MRC Vegas conference.