Feature Company

Interview with Marcus Klische, CTO/VP Sales, ID Development AG
March 2006

FB

Can you please provide our readers with a brief background of the company?

ID

ID Development AG was founded mid 2005 in Switzerland. A group of international experts joined the company to enable access to a biometric knowledge base for governments and business partners. These experts came from the world of biometrics, personalization, ID documents and border crossing applications.

We offer personalized solutions to our customers. ID Development is not a vendor for sensors or algorithms. We do however, provide an in-depth expertise in all areas of biometrics.  This advantage helps to offer the best combination of biometric hardware and software to customers. We understand the customer requirements and the technologies and build the solution out of this.

FB

Can you describe your product line-up?

ID

Pic2Pass is our product to capture photos for further use in badges, company ID's, drivers license and national ID's and finally for passport enrolment. With this product you can take photos out of webcams, digital cameras or with regular scanners and bring the photo into ICAO compliant format.

In addition to Pic2Pass, eCapture records further biometrics like Fingerprint and/or Iris together with personal information. Passport offices from government can use the software modules to integrate the new requirements of passport enrolment into existing passport application processes.

Also we have a multimodal automated border crossing gate called eGate and an enterprise border management software designed to increase convenience and security in the border crossing process. This product is called eBorder. Of course we can integrate any type or combination of biometrics into regular access control systems.

FB

Which vertical markets are you focusing on?

ID

So far, we have projects for border control and passport personalization as well as for physical access in military facilities. Structurally we have created four subsidiaries to address special vertical market needs. For example, we founded the company ID TRAVEL AG, to support the market in Border Control, Personalization, and ID Cards. ID FINANCE, ID ACCESS and ID NETWORK will soon follow.

FB

What does your company offer that is unique?

ID

Our competitive advantage is our flexibility and the independent knowledge from our industry experts. We do not compete with the system integration companies like EDS, Unisys etc, however we can be a subcontractor in special areas, like for example, picture enhancement for passport enrolment.

FB

You recently were awarded contracts in the Military and Financial areas. Can you elaborate on this for us?

ID

For the military customer we designed a multimodal biometrics access solution and for the financial customer we provided enhanced biometric protection for access to their ATM-Refill rooms at their bank branches.

FB

Where do you see the greatest growth for the company over the next 2 years?

ID

We are very confident that we can grow quickly with our data capturing and Pic2Pass software. Our applications use the latest technologies and keep the user interface very simple and easy to use. ICAO chose the face as the first and mandatory biometric trait for any kind of new international ID documents with biometrics. Besides the technical aspects, face technology is already integrated in passports as a photograph. The biometric traits of face recognition can be combined into the new ePassport microchip without effecting the existing passport application or the production process. The new ICAO specifications for electronic passports require new qualified methods for the enrolment of personal and biometric data and again ID Development AG has developed a new system in order to support governments and authorities in capturing personal and biometric data and preparing them according to the ICAO guidelines.The enrolment for the photo/face is done with a video camera or a digital photo camera. In the first step several pictures of the applicant will be captured. The software checks the quality of the picture and proposes the best one according to the photo guidelines and ISO 19794-5 standards. Alternatively, already existing pictures can also be scanned with any regular scanner from a paper based application form.

We will be showing our solutions at the CeBIT show in Hannover and at SecuTech in Taipei.

FB

Thank you for speaking with us about your new company.

ID

You are most welcome.

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