WALL, N.J., Feb. 27, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BIO-key International, Inc. (OTCBB:BKYI), a global leader in fingerprint biometric identification solutions and advanced mobile identification technology, today reported that the company has provided a mobile, state of the art, fingerprint biometric identity solution demo for the city clerk's office in Sacramento, CA. BIO-key, partnered with Fulcrum Biometrics to provide mobile fingerprint authentication for city staff processing acknowledgement and approval documents, utilizing the Apple iPhone. The city of Sacramento is in the testing stage and likely be the first city in the U.S. to employ finger biometric technology using a smartphone to meet city compliance requirements. If all goes as planned, implementation will be launched before 2013.
"The objective is to set the standard by developing a Best Practice Model for every city seeking to add efficiencies to their acknowledgement and approval process for city processes," stated Dawn Bullwinkel, Assistant City Clerk. During the past four years, Shirley Concolino, City Clerk and her team have worked closely with the Secretary of State in California to identify a more secure, yet more convenient solution to the current process. "Thanks to BIO-key, the city will meet our goals of increased efficiency and best practice compliance, ideally sharing the model with fellow cities and city managers throughout the nation," added Ms. Bullwinkel.
The city of Sacramento city clerk's office began searching for a more efficient solution to meet digital signature compliance guidelines in 2008. City staff, planners, architects and approved contractors using eSignatures are required to offer a second form of identification, in order to satisfy the requirements of government codes. Today, using the Fulcrum handheld device attached to the iPhone, users can simply swipe their finger as identification. In less than three seconds, the user will be authenticated (Cloud or Server) or rejected if they are not the appropriate person.
"We believe that incorporating biometrics will improve the workflow and we're already seeing signs confirming this benefit. Our city recognizes four levels of contact processes. The four levels include decorative, acknowledgement, approval and the last which calls for the highest level of security. All four levels must be compliant in order to meet government codes," mentioned Bullwinkel. "Efficiency is important, but security is paramount; adding a biometric provides us with a level of security which is beyond reproach," proclaimed Bullwinkel. "We're all proud to be pioneering this effort as we feel Sacramento is paving the way for all of the other U.S. cities," said Shirley Concolino, City Clerk.
"As the news about Sacramento's successful migration to mobile fingerprint biometric technology extends to over ten thousand cities across the United States; BIO-key anticipates a growing demand for their mobile authentication and identification solutions," stated Scott Mahnken, VP of Marketing, BIO-key. "Every city faces similar challenges protecting the security of documents and transactions. Therefore we believe other cities in California and around the nation will follow Sacramento's lead," added Mahnken.
See article in Digital Community "Totally Mobile - Are We There Yet"
About BIO-key
BIO-key International, Inc., headquartered in Wall, New Jersey, develops and delivers advanced identification solutions to commercial and government enterprises, integrators, and custom application developers. BIO-key's award winning, high performance, scalable, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy biometric finger identification technology accurately identifies and authenticates users of wireless and enterprise applications. Our solutions are used in local embedded OEM products as well as some of the world's largest identification deployments to improve security, guarantee identity, and help reduce identity theft. BIO-key's technology is offered directly or by market leading partners around the world. (http://www.bio-key.com)
About Fulcrum Biometrics
Fulcrum Biometrics, with headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, is an international provider, distributor and integrator of multi-biometric hardware and software solutions in such areas as Micro Finance, E-Government, Retail Point-of-Sale, Healthcare, Travel, Benefits Management and Banking. Fulcrum Biometrics is the developer of the FbF mobileOne fingerprint accessory for iOS. (http://www.fulcrumbiometrics.com)
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