BIO-Key fingerprint solution successfully passes NIST SDK test

Good news for Wall, New Jersey-based BIO-key International (OTCB: BKYI), a developer of wireless public safety solutions and finger-based biometric identification: It has participated in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) fingerprint SDK tests, and passed successfully. BIO-key’s production fingerprint algorithm, Vector Segment Technology (VST) Version 6, which is built on American National Standards Institute (ANSI) International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) 378 industry standards, demonstrated strong competitive performance, especially on US VISIT test datasets.

For the SDK test, four plain-impression datasets collected by the DHS and the Department of State (DoS) were used. Previously, NIST has published algorithm test results using both these and additional datasets which included rolled impression and segmented slap fingerprint images (EFTS Type 14). All of the images in the four datasets were collected on live-scan fingerprint scanners that are no longer in production, which have been improved in later models, or versions with higher quality optoelectronics. The company says that across all datasets, at the lowest False Accept Rate (FAR) reported, BIO-key’s matching algorithm’s True Accept Rate (TAR) was within 1 percent accuracy of the average scores by major established AFIS vendors. At the highest FAR reported by NIST, BIO-key’s variation was only one-third of 1 percent of the average AFIS vendor scores across all datasets.

Moreover, at the lowest FAR reported, BIO-key’s matching algorithm’s TAR varied by only one-half of 1 percent of the average scores for the better performing dataset for most of the AFIS algorithms tested, US VISIT POEBVA (Point of Entry Data and Bio-Visa Application). In the metric of Equal Error Rate (EER), across all datasets, BIO-key’s scores were within one-third of 1 percent of the average scores of the major AFIS vendors.

The NIST test results are impressive, but more than 2,500 police, fire, and emergency services departments in North America have not waited for the test to conclude, and are already using BIO-key solutions.