Interview with Barry L. Hodge, President and CEO, SecurLinx Corporation

Company referenced in this item: SecurLinx

FB

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

SecurLinx

SecurLinx was founded in October of 2003 and began operations in Morgantown, WV in April of 2004. Our intellectual property was originally developed by GTE Services and won the Computerworld/Smithsonian Award. Since that time we have added a patent and 4 copyrighted middleware solutions to our IP inventory. We have transitioned from the development stage to commercialization.

FB

Can you review your Biometric product lineup?

SecurLinx

We currently offer four middleware solutions: 1. IdentiTrac is our flagship offering. It is a multi-modal identity management platform aimed at large database applications using primarily facial recognition and/or fingerprint identification. 2. FaceTrac provides surveillance via facial recognition against a database or watch list. It is designed for access control at locations utilizing screening with the assistance of magnetometers and security personnel. 3. WatchTrac compares photo ID’s against a watch list and can be used in conjunction with FaceTrac or as a stand-alone device that is particularly effective in managing check cashing operations. 4. VeriTrac Door Entry Systems provide multi-modal access control.

FB

Has this been a good year for the company?

SecurLinx

We are certainly pleased with the reception we have received going from the development lab to the customer site. It is always exciting to work with clients in addressing their business requirements in new and innovative ways. I would describe 2008 as a breakthrough year for our company having achieved our first real revenues and generated significant sales activity.

FB

Can you tell us about your involvement with the Amber Alert program?

SecurLinx

IdentiTrac has been selected as the platform for Amberview, the West Virginia Amber Alert System used by both public and private school systems. We deployed the system in 2006 and it went live last year. Should a West Virginia student whose parents have pre-enrolled in Amberview be abducted, state law enforcement issues an Amber Alert that includes a photo of the child. The system provides the law enforcement officer the ability to do facial recognition comparisons via mobile PDA’s equipped with cameras and return the results to the officer in the field.

FB

You also have a new generation of product that you will be launching at the BCC this year. Can you please tell us about this?

SecurLinx

At the BCC Conference this year, we will formally introduce a commercial offering for managing check cashing transactions. The product has been tentatively branded as IDTrac and will offer customers the ability to link a financial transaction to a photo ID. Should the transaction subsequently involve insufficient funds or suspected fraud, the user will have the ability to flag the photo and utilize facial recognition to detect a second attempt to present a check.

FB

Which vertical market segments are you concentrating on?

SecurLinx

We entered the market primarily through law enforcement and we continue to serve this market with open systems for enabling multi-modal biometric solutions. Our longer term goals are to address specific needs in the identity management area of commercial enterprises. Our current product suite has application in retail as a theft deterrent, in commercial building access control requiring photo ID for entry and in financial services for both fraud prevention and regulatory compliance such as anti-money laundering. We are very active in the gaming segment.

FB

What are some of the challenges you face with biometrics?

SecurLinx

In my opinion, the industry still suffers from the disconnect between the size of the enterprises wishing to apply biometric services, usually very large, and the bandwidth of the suppliers and innovators of the technology, relatively small companies. As the void in between is filled with larger partners and integrators, market utilization will increase dramatically. Unfortunately the market is not large enough to attract these types of companies en masse but that will change and soon.

FB

In terms of new product development, what can we expect to see from Securlinx in the near future?

SecurLinx

We still have a few tricks up our sleeve! SecurLinx supports and is in fact based on the principle of being an "open system" provider. We develop our systems to be mode and brand agnostic, allowing users to select the best solution available and easily switch if a better solution is developed. We are interested in the development and deployment of multi-modal sensors to support multi-modal business requirements. With no real "universal donor" in the biometric service provider catalog, multi-modal sensors will do more to allow open systems and interoperability than any other advancement. You should expect to see future offerings that include these types of devices.