Government Testing
We feel the Federal Government of the United States all over the place. It can be both good and bad, but given the plight of our economy, we tend to have a much more negative attitude about it all. But how can one blame the American public? They have spent tons and tons of taxpayer money on economic stimulus, but yet we still do not feel the effects of it. Job growth still remains anemic, and the mood of the people are just about the same, or even getting worse. But apart from trying to repair the economy of the United States, there is another yet in which the Federal Government very much dominates: The Biometrics Industry.
At the present time, they are the biggest awarder of lucrative contracts in this area. I have let my feelings be known on this one, and as you can guess, it is pretty much negative. But there is one area in which I will praise them with regards to Biometrics. And that, is like in other industries, they offer performance testing to ensure that certain products and solutions do meet certain standards. One such test is known as “MINEX”. Essentially, it stands for the “Minutae Interoperability Exchange Test”. And, as you can guess, it is designed to “ . . . to measure performance and interoperability of fingerprint templates and to establish compliance for fingerprint technology for the US Government’s PIV (Personal Identity Verification) program.” (SOURCE: http://www.matchoncard.com/the-technology/relevant-standards-for-match-on-card/what-is-minex-and-minexii/). There is yet another evaluation test known as “MINEX II”, which is an extension of MINEX. But the focus is upon Fingerprint Recognition, which is used exclusively in Smart Cards, for the Federal Governments “Personal Identity Verification” Program, or PIV for short. And it is today, I came across a Press Release which provides a further update to it, and the Biometrics Vendor mentioned is known as “Precise Biometrics”.
Here are the details: “Precise Biometrics is the only biometric supplier that has passed the performance requirements with three different smart card vendor submissions - Gemalto, Giesecke & Devrient, and SPYRUS. All three submissions passed with nearly identical, outstanding results; while the submission with SPYRUS proved to be the fastest overall of any vendor in the test . . . New developments show that MINEX II will be a key in upcoming Federal ID programs. The U.S. government deploys Personal Identity Verification (PIV) which specifies the identification process of employees. NIST has issued proposed amendments to the Federal Information Processing Standard 201 (FIPS 201) that defines the PIV credential. The amendment states that Match-on-Card now is an approved authentication mechanism for the PIV smart cards. Also, a new Presidential Directive calls for all Federal agencies to immediately develop and issue an implementation policy for PIV. Through this policy, each agency will require operational use of the previously-issued PIV smart card credential as the common means of authentication for access to the agency’s facilities, networks, and information systems starting 2012.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/8765/).
Final Thoughts On Today’s Posting
My opinions are mixed on this one. First, I would like to offer my heartiest congratulations to the Biometrics Vendor for their performance on this evaluation, it seems like it was literally a break neck competition amongst three other Biometric Vendors, with another one eventually winning out. But, keep in mind, this MINEX evaluation is only for use with regards to use in the Federal Government. In other words, these tests and evaluations are only designed to support the Biometrics applications just for the specific needs of the Federal Government.
In particular, based upon in the news in the Press Release, this evaluation is primarily designed for Smart Card usage by employees of the Federal Government, in an effort to help speed up the verification and identification processes of these individuals, when accessing physical and logical assets. As I write this Posting, one thought predominates my mind. And that is, while the assets of the Federal Government are obviously very crucial to the United States, why can’t this same level of rigorous testing and evaluations be extended and offered to the private sector??? In other words, there are many other types and kinds of customers in the private sector who are probably considering implementing the use of Biometrics, so shouldn’t we be afforded the same level of assurances that what we are purchasing also meets a certain standard of confidence???
For the longest time, I have always advocated for the Biometrics Industry to create a central authority to monitor and maintain standards (in other words a “watchdog” group of sorts), and testing procedures to ensure that what the customer gets is the real thing. I have been a proponent for the Biometrics Vendors to step up to the plate and create such an organization, but perhaps time is running out, and it is time probably for the Federal Government to impart its knowledge in this area. This is truly paradox: When we truly need our the assistance of our Federal Government, like in this case, the help is barely trickling through. But in other regards, it comes in as a gushing waterfall (especially when they do more harm than good in the long run).