Appointments News
SIA appoints chair and vice chair to lead biometrics advisory board

Benji Hutchison

The Security Industry Association (SIA) recently named a chair and vice chair to lead its Identity and Biometric Technology Advisory Board (IBTAB).

Benji Hutchinson, president of U.S. federal government business at NEC Corporation of America will serve as chair, and Jim Black, director of security standards and controls at Microsoft’s Cloud Operations and Innovation Physical Security Group, as vice chair.

Hutchinson joined NEC in 2016 and has 20 years of experience in the IT, biometrics, identity and computer vision industries. “The security industry is working to leverage biometric technologies to make society safer and more secure for everyone while protecting privacy and civil liberties,” said Hutchinson in a statement published on SIA’s website. “I’m looking forward to working together with my colleagues to ensure we further develop and promulgate standards and principles that promote equitable uses of biometric technology. We plan to engage in public dialogue to educate and inform decision makers and practitioners about how to safely and effectively deploy these technologies and what it would mean to lose this capability.”

Jim Black

Black joined Microsoft 2011 and oversees the physical security standards for the company’s cloud critical infrastructures globally.

“It is an honour to be nominated and elected by my colleagues to the vice chair role on the SIA Identity and Biometric Technology Advisory Board,” said Black. “I’m excited and very much looking forward to offering perspective and insights to SIA leadership on critical technology issues impacting security, privacy and society.”

The SIA IBTAB was founded in January and, according to the organization, provides technical expertise to encourage informed buying decisions in technologies that include facial recognition systems, identity proofing and verification solutions, biometric devices and mobile identification platforms.