TORONTO, Aug. 31 -- Bioscrypt Inc. (TSX: BYT), announced today that its fingerprint algorithms have been qualified by the General Services Administration (GSA) for use in the United States government's Personal Identity Verification (PIV) program.
In August 2004, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) was issued mandating the establishment of a standard for identification of federal employees and contractors and that a common identification credential be created to access both physical and logical assets. In response to this Directive, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors in February 2005.
Under FIPS 201, the PIV credential is required to contain two fingerprint templates that are compliant with the ANSI/INCITS 378 fingerprint minutiae data interchange format standard, to enable the authentication of an individual. These two standards-based fingerprint templates are mandated to be stored on the PIV card and made available for use by agencies for physical and/or logical access control.
With the GSA listing, Bioscrypt's fingerprint algorithms are now qualified to be used to create the ANSI 378 templates required for PIV card issuance and for cardholder verification.
"The qualification of our minutiae based algorithm for use in the PIV program marks another important stage in the development of our product portfolio for the U.S. Government market," said Dr. Colin Soutar, CTO Bioscrypt Inc. "This qualification is a direct result of our success as one of the initial six interoperable matchers following NIST's Minutiae Interoperability tests."
In addition to GSA approved fingerprint algorithms, Bioscrypt will also address FIPS 201 access control requirements with its Veri-Series readers for physical access control as well as its VeriSoft software application for logical access control.
"We believe the FIPS 201 requirements are tailor made for Bioscrypt solutions as they incorporate the products we have brought together to form our Door to Desktop(R) technology. The opportunity exists to sell our biometric algorithm for use at the point of credential issuance; our readers for physical access control; and our software for logical access control," said Robert L. Williams, President and CEO of Bioscrypt. "Our ability to sell our Veri-Series readers has positioned us as the market share leader in the biometric physical access control market as recognized by third party consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, and we plan on leveraging this position as we bring FIPS 201 compliant readers to market. We have also begun to position our VeriSoft application for this opportunity having already integrated the product with one of our partner's end-to-end FIPS 201 solution."
