News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

Byrd announces new biometric facility

Monday, December 21, 2009

United States Senator Robert Byrd, a democrat from West Virginia, has announced the construction of a new Biometrics Technology Center to be built on the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division campus in Clarksburg. The new building, which is estimated to cost $328 million, will encompass 360,000 square feet, four stories in height and will double the capacity on the campus.


Created as a joint effort between the FBI and the Department of Defense, the new center is expected to push biometric technology in the field of criminal justice, border control and homeland security through its dedication to research and development, however, Byrd also cited the excitement of bringing new construction work to his state. Some of the specific technologies expected to benefit from the new biometrics center include DNA, iris, palm print and facial recognition-based biometric systems. The expected completion date of the center is set for 2013. [end] 

M2SYS Technology has released a multi-modal biometric software solution called the Hybrid Biometric Platform. The Hybrid Biometric Platform is a client/server system that supports the use of fingerprints, finger veins, palm veins and iris recognition as a form of biometric authentication with the system designed so that customers are not locked into one biometric mode should they decide to change or add new modes in the future.

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Codebench Inc. announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center in Austin, Texas has deployed Codebench’s PIVCheck Plus and Certificate Manager software to check and authenticate Personal Identity Verification cards for employees at its new facility.

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Aware Inc. has announced it has supplied a major U.S. government agency with client and server-based software products for the personal identity verification (PIV) employee credentialing system implemented by IT services firm Jacob & Sundstrom.

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SmartMetric, a developer of portable biometric solutions, has announced that its biometric activated data card can now be used to contain full medical history and health records on the individual. The card, called the SmartMetric Data Card, is a standard sized card that has the capability of holding multiple pages of data as well as being inaccessible without the holder first scanning his fingerprint on the card itself.

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Biometric Signature ID (BSI) announced positive results from a study of their software-only approach to biometric authentication for students using PCs. The new solution utilizes gesture biometrics via a user’s mouse and is envisioned to provide distance-learning students a more effective and secure means of accessing personal student files, discussion groups and other private areas of school networks.

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Ghana’s major electronic clearing and payment system could provide enough space and communication capabilities to enable adding new purposes for removing ghost payrollers, according to a Peace FM Online article.

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