BIO-key(R) and Tiger IT Awarded a Follow-on Contract for Nationwide Voter / Citizen Registration in Bangladesh
26/11/2007 13:04
PR Newswire
WALL, New Jersey and DHAKA, Bangladesh, November 26 /PRNewswire/ --
- Solution Prevents Duplicate Registrations and Issues Voter Rolls and
National ID Cards
BIO-key International, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BKYI), a leader in
finger-based biometric identification and wireless public safety, and Tiger
IT BD Ltd. (Tiger IT), a leader in both prepackaged and customized software
solutions, today announced that they have been awarded an exclusive contract
for the biometric-based credentialing solution for the Bangladesh Voter
Registration Project. This solution is being used to prepare voter rolls and
issue national ID cards in preparation for Bangladesh's general elections to
be held in 2008.
The initial implementation of the solution has successfully registered
and issued national ID cards for nearly 5 million people and demonstrated the
creation of local voter rolls for the election. The registration process,
which is designed to be convenient for citizens, incorporates a timesaving
pre-registration step as well as scheduled appointment times to enroll each
citizen's biometric information including photograph, four fingerprints and
signature. The biometric enrollment process takes about 5 to 6 minutes per
person.
"Tiger IT's implementation of WEB-key(R) performed above expectations.
Operating at more than 1 million matches per second on a single processor, it
accurately identified duplicate registrations," said Ziaur Rahman, Managing
Director of Tiger IT. "This performance, combined with the outstanding
methodology developed by the Bangladesh Army to collect and process the data,
sets the stage to complete the nationwide registration by the summer of
2008."
Beyond establishing more accurate voter rolls to facilitate the upcoming
election in 2008, the ability to verify one's identity provides significant
benefits in the course of each citizen's daily life. For example, the
National ID card is used by each citizen to access up to 22 different
services managed or offered by the government. The National ID card also
includes a standard barcode encoded with ISO fingerprint templates and PKI
digital hash that can be used to quickly verify the identity of the
cardholder and the integrity and authenticity of the ID card.
"Tiger IT, BIO-key and Cognitec, in fulfilling their technical promises
in the first phase, have demonstrated they can ensure high quality enrollment
data by deploying a powerful identity management solution that delivers
accurate, high-speed alias detection on a large scale," commented Major
General Shafiq, Military Secretary of the Bangladesh Army. "Their expertise
will be valuable as we begin the nationwide rollout of the solution."
This next phase of the project, scheduled to begin in November, will
register up to 100 million people, making it the largest biometric enrollment
initiative in the world. This will involve more than 20,000 personnel, 500 ID
management servers developed by Tiger IT, and over 8,000 laptop computers
equipped with Tiger IT enrollment software, BIO-key's fingerprint ID software
and FBI certified fingerprint readers. BIO-key's WEB-key development platform
will be used in stages to detect duplicate registrations.
"BIO-key is pleased to assist Bangladesh to produce voter rolls and
identity cards," stated Michael DePasquale, President and CEO of BIO-key.
"The consistency and reliability of our VST and WEB-key platforms, including
our Intelligent Image Indexing(TM) technology, have been instrumental in the
deployment of this large scale national initiative to register voters and
detect duplicates to ensure a free and fair election. This contract award is
a major inflection for our company and a validation of the technologies that
we have developed over the past 10 years. BIO-key's large scale ID platform
is now being considered for a host of additional projects around the world as
we are able to provide superior accuracy, speed and scalability with minimal
hardware infrastructure."
About BIO-key
BIO-key International, Inc., headquartered in Wall, New Jersey, develops
and delivers advanced identification solutions and information services to
law enforcement departments, public safety agencies, government and private
sector customers. BIO-key's mobile wireless technology provides first
responders with critical, reliable, real-time data and images from local,
state and national databases. BIO-key's high performance, scalable,
cost-effective and easy-to-deploy biometric fingerprint identification
technology accurately identifies and authenticates users of wireless and
enterprise data to improve security, convenience and privacy and to reduce
identity theft. Over 750 police departments in North America use BIO-key
solutions, making BIO-key the leading supplier of mobile and wireless
solutions for law enforcement. (http://www.bio-key.com)
About Cognitec Systems,
Cognitec Systems with headquarters in Dresden, Germany, and offices in
Herndon, VA; Miami, FL; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, develops and markets the
well-established and world-leading FaceVACS(R) face recognition software.
Cognitec Systems Corporation
13800 Coppermine Road, Herndon, VA 20171
Roger Kelesoglu, Senior Business Development Executive
roger@cognitec.com
Phone: +1-978-692-1251
+1-305-629-3113
About Tiger IT
Tiger IT BD Ltd., headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is a full-service
developer of enterprise software applications and solutions for both
government agencies and the private sector. Tiger IT is routinely considered
by many to employ the most experienced and capable development team in
Bangladesh. Some of the end-customers that benefit from Tiger IT include
global Fortune 500 corporations. Tiger IT's US counterpart has recently
signed a 4 million dollar contract to prevent online media piracy using a
solution developed primarily in Bangladesh.
(http://tigeritbd.com)
This news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to
certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ
materially from those projected on the basis of these statements. The words
"estimate," "project," "intends," "expects," "believes" and similar
expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such
forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, as well as
assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management
pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. For a more complete description of these and other risk
factors that may affect the future performance of BIO-key International, see
"Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-KSB and its other
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned
not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak
only as of the date made. The Company also undertakes no obligation to
disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements to reflect events
or circumstances after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of
unanticipated events.
Company Contact: BIO-key International, Inc.
Bud Yanak
+1-732-359-1100
Web site: http://www.bio-key.com
http://www.tigeritbd.com
Bud Yanak of BIO-key International, Inc., +1-732-359-1100; or Roger Kelesoglu, Senior Business Development Executive of Cognitec Systems, +1-978-692-1251, +1-305-629-3113, roger@cognitec.com