Bioscrypt Gets Qualification

TORONTO -- Bioscrypt Inc. (TSX: BYT), a leading provider of identity verification technology, announced today that its fingerprint algorithms have been qualified by the General Services Administration (GSA) for use in the United States government's Personal Identity Verification (PIV) program.

In August 2004, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) was issued mandating the establishment of a standard for identification of federal employees and contractors and that a common identification credential be created to access both physical and logical assets. In response to this Directive, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors in February 2005.

Under FIPS 201, the PIV credential is required to contain two fingerprint templates that are compliant with the ANSI/INCITS 378 fingerprint minutiae data interchange format standard, to enable the authentication of an individual. These two standards-based fingerprint templates are mandated to be stored on the PIV card and made available for use by agencies for physical and/or logical access control.

With the GSA listing, Bioscrypt's fingerprint algorithms are now qualified to be used to create the ANSI 378 templates required for PIV card issuance and for cardholder verification.

"The qualification of our minutiae based algorithm for use in the PIV program marks another important stage in the development of our product portfolio for the U.S. Government market", said Dr. Colin Soutar, CTO Bioscrypt Inc. "This qualification is a direct result of our success as one of the initial six interoperable matchers following NIST's Minutiae Interoperability tests."

Bioscrypt Inc.