From unlocking our phones with a glance to proving our age online, biometrics and digital identity tools are becoming woven into our everyday lives. Yet as these technologies evolve, so do the challenges of security, privacy, and trust. EU-funded Project PHACKS is tackling these questions head-on—rethinking biometrics, testing the resilience of age estimation systems, and exploring cutting-edge approaches like zero-knowledge proofs for digital wallets. By bridging policy frameworks from the OECD with innovation in areas such as privacy-preserving validation and aligning with global initiatives like the BIS’s FINTERNET, PHACKS is shaping how individuals and organisations can share and validate data securely.
This article explores some of the project’s latest insights and why collaboration across industries and governments is key to building a safer digital future.
Rethinking Biometrics: From Sherlock Homes to Smartphones
Humans are naturally great at recognising faces from multiple angles. Yet modern face recognition systems often rely on just a single static image. Why? When our phones are capable of so much more? Project PHACKS is challenging the status quo—developing smarter, more secure biometric registration and authentication methods. Because one angle just isn’t enough.
Can Biometrics Be Fooled?
Age estimation is gaining traction as a way to support legal age checks—but how secure is it? Could beauty treatments, makeup, or even Botox be used to trick the system into thinking someone is older or younger? Biometric vulnerabilities in age estimation tech aren’t widely understood yet. That’s why the EU project PHACKS is looking for collaborators to explore how easily these systems can be manipulated—and how to make them more resilient.
Zero Knowledge Proofs and the Future of Digital Wallets
New types of digital wallet are coming to your smartphone. Like your physical wallet they will hold your data and credentials for you to control and use safely. Over 1000 Digital Wallet experts were in Geneva last month, where group of about 50 experts met to discuss Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) in relation to digital wallets. They agreed to collaborate with each other. EU Project PHACKS was tabled as a good example of a collaborative implementation project that could help to accelerate the practical use of digital wallets day-to-day and a catalyst to encourage governments to make their authoritative data sources available for privacy-preserving data validation. PHACKS is looking for help to create new implementations.
From OECD Policy to Real-World Impact: PHACKS and Privacy-Preserving Validation
OECD is one of the leading international organisations that has published innovative guidance for governments on digital financial risk mitigation, digital taxation and digital identification. It recognises the synergistic opportunities of digital wallets and also the challenges involved in enabling greater, safer collaboration with stronger privacy, cybersecurity and counter-fraud. Privacy preserving data validation is gradually being recognised as a key tool to help make this possible. EU Project PHACKS is taking the OECD’s guidance into the project with government and business organisations, making some implementations possible through the operational validation of consumer and company data against authoritative government data sources. PHACKS is looking for new innovative participants to create new implementations.
Trust and Validation: How PHACKS Aligns with BIS’s Vision for FINTERNET”
If you are in the financial sector, you may be aware of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). BIS has several interesting digital innovation projects for improving financial services, including FINTERNET – a sort of financial internet – which is highly relevant to the future of digital wallets. They all depend on underlying trust and data validation. EU PHACKS is one of a number of projects that is aligned to the goals of BIS.