Homeland Security seeking off-the-shelf applications to manage biometric data
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The Department of Homeland Security’ Office of Biometric Identity Management is currently looking for off-the-shelf applications that can more effectively store, match and analyze biometric data, according to a report by GCN.
In a recent request for information, the agency expressed its interest in pre-existing, off-the-shelf applications capable of providing a range of processing capabilities, including business process and transaction management, biometric matcher middleware, multi-modal biometric fusion, reporting and analytics tools and data storage architecture.
The new off-the-shelf applications will replace existing tools, which are part of IDENT, the DHS-wide system for storage and processing of biometric and related biographic data.
According to the DHS, the new program can be comprised of one or more applications and should include identification, verification, biometric name and text search and external system search, among other functions.
The applications must also offer multiple biometric methods of identification including fingerprints, iris and facial recognition.
Though the system currently offers all three biometric methods, fingerprint is used as its primary method, while the number of iris and facial images in the database is relatively small in comparison.
Acceding to Biometrics Update.com m the applications must also be able to identify other personal traits such as tattoos and scars.
The DHS said it also requires vendors to build a reporting and analytics platform that is kept separate from its operational identity database, in order to store the data that is specifically used for reporting and analytics.
Finally, the DHS is also looking to develop an advanced analytics program by using one or more of its existing commercial, government or open source business intelligence and analysis applications.
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