BIO-key International, a provider of finger-based biometric identification solutions, announced the Oklahoma County (OK) Sheriff’s Office deployment of an FBI-compliant advanced authentication solution for law enforcement mobile data system users statewide, based on BIO-key’s secure fingerprint authentication.
BIO-key International, a provider of finger-based biometric identification solutions, announced the Oklahoma County (OK) Sheriff's Office deployment of an FBI-compliant advanced authentication solution for law enforcement mobile data system users statewide, based on BIO-key's secure fingerprint authentication.
This solution complies with new federal security requirements for advanced user authentication from in-vehicle laptops accessing FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) databases, while streamlining the log on process for busy patrol officers and other users. More than 400 fingerprint scanners have been installed in Oklahoma State Highway Patrol vehicles and in patrol cars in Tulsa County and Oklahoma County. Upon completion of this deployment, 800 police vehicles will be equipped statewide.
The project, funded through the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council under the federal Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, is being managed by the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's Office hosts the statewide mobile data system serving more than 70 federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies.
"The reception from officers in the field has been fantastic," said Lieutenant Matt Jackson of the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office. "We're able to meet a new federal security requirement and make their job easier at the same time. The log on process is more streamlined. Officers no longer have to remember their user ID or password, and, unlike a token or smart card, you can't damage, misplace or lose your fingerprint."
BIO-key's Vector Segment Technology, the patented fingerprint matching algorithm used to identify the officers in this application, is integrated with mobile data solution from BIO-key partner, Interact Public Safety Systems, which these Oklahoma agencies currently use.
The solution is fingerprint reader independent, allowing for enrollment, identification and verification to be performed across a variety of fingerprint scanners. This feature provided Oklahoma County with the ability to deploy a fingerprint reader that not only meets the rigorous US Federal Information Processing Standard 201 (FIPS 201) for Personal Identification Verification (PIV) for law enforcement users, but one that is also NIST-certified for two-finger digital fingerprint capture. As a result, the same readers can be used by officers in the field to help positively identify persons of interest when these departments get wireless access to the state's offender fingerprint database in the near future, eliminating the need for additional readers and saving money.
"With the deadline for complying with FBI advanced authentication requirements fast approaching, we expect other law enforcement agencies to look closely at what Oklahoma is doing," said BIO-key CEO Mike DePasquale. "We offer partner solutions that use our fingerprint-based biometrics authentication software for accessing departmental workstations as well. This provides agencies with the ability to use the employee fingerprint that only needs to be enrolled once to authenticate the user on any device, in any location or to positively identify the employee in other applications."