DoD, NIST release BioAPI CTS

As biometric devices proliferate among businesses and government agencies, two issues become important: Interoperability and scalability. Newly released software tools from the Department of Defense (DoD) will help in this regard. DoD Biometrics Management Office (BMO) and the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) completed the development of two software tools, known as BioAPI Conformance Test Suite (CTS) implementations. The tools will help users verify the conformance of biometrics subsystems (that is, software associated with biometric sensors such as fingerprint readers) to the American National Standard International Committee for Information Technology Standard (ANSI INCITS) 358-2002, the BioAPI Specification 1.1. The BioAPI standard defines generic interfaces to a broad range of biometric technologies.

The newly released tools are based on a conformance testing methodology under development in INCITS Technical Committee M1 - Biometrics. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) / International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Joint Technical Committee 1 Subcommittee 37 - Biometrics is currently developing international versions of the BioAPI specification and the associated conformance testing methodology standard.

The National Biometric Security Project cosponsored the CTS software development in support of NIST’s biometric standards program. The Biometric Foundation collaborated with NIST in performing the required tests.

-read more in this news release; and see CTS overview; read more about DOD - Biometrics at this Web site; and more about NIST - Biometrics at this Web site