Identix Wins the U.S. Department of State Facial Recognition Solicitation

The award to Identix is part of DoSs mandate to augment its automated fraud-detection assistance capabilities through the use of facial recognition to screen for duplicates, aliases and for faces on a watch list prior to issuance of a visa. Identix was selected after a competitive bidding process and detailed technical evaluation as the sole recipient of the DoSs Facial Recognition System and Integration Support contract. The facial recognition system Identix is integrating into the DoSs visa application processes will be the largest deployment of facial recognition technology to-date in the world and is expected to provide functionality that includes: -- Initial enrollment of approximately 35 million legacy visa images; -- Acquiring and enrolling approximately 8 million new visa images in the initial year of the contract, as well as in each option year exercised by DoS; -- Acquiring and enrolling at least 10 million e-Diversity Visa applicants per year; -- Matching against variable galleries and databases provided by DoS; -- Processing up to 2,000 matches per hour. The award to Identix consists of a one-year base contract with four one-year options to renew in favor of DoS. The contract contains multiple program specifications and project deployment options. The initial scope of work under the contract involves immediate supply, integration and deployment of facial recognition systems for visa and e-Diversity Visa applicant processing. If authorized and funded by DoS, potential additional project deployments under the contract could include the design and implementation of a facial recognition system for the passport application processing environment. Identix expects to recognize more than $2.2 million over the next 12 months from the initial options that have been exercised to-date under this contract. As part of its responsibilities for issuing visas to foreign nationals, the DoS has the obligation to verify applicant identities, prevent the issuance of visas to those who pose national security threats, and to prevent the issuance of visas to applicants using fraudulent aliases. In furtherance of these responsibilities, and based on DoS maintaining some of the largest face image databases in the world, the agency wanted the ability to compare biometric facial images of applicants against large databases from multiple agencies, such as DoS, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. According to the DoS, the addition of facial recognition technology is expected to increase homeland security and better facilitate the anti-fraud goals of DoSs existing travel document issuance processes in the following ways: -- The automated detection of applicant fraud through the one-to-many matching of the submitted photo with those already in the database; -- The verification of the identity of an applicant for visa renewal through the one-to-one matching of his or her submitted photo with one already in the database; -- The detection of wanted or missing persons through the one-to-many matching of submitted photos against a limited watch-list of images. Identix is the prime contractor on the project. The Identix team includes two leading systems integration firms: San Diego, CA-based Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and New York City-based, International Biometric Group (IBG).