Interview with Rob Douglas, President, L-1 Enterprise Access Division

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“Intelligent authentication at the edge”

FB
You head up the Enterprise Access Division of L-1 Identity Solutions. Can you please review the L-1 structure for us?

L-1
The L-1 Enterprise Access Division was previously a public company called Bioscrypt, which was based in Toronto, Canada. Bioscrypt was acquired, in March of 2008, by L-1 Identity Solutions. L-1 Identity Solutions is a provider of technology, products, systems, solutions, and services that protect and secure personal identities and assets. The company operates in two segments; solutions and services. The Enterprise Access Division is part of the solutions segment. The other divisions in the solutions segment include the Secure Credentialing Division and the Biometrics Division. The Secure Credentialing Division focuses on complete solutions for the integration and verification of the secure credential lifecycle, from testing through issuance and inspection. The Biometrics Division provides solutions for capture, management and movement of biometric data for positive rapid Id and tracking persons of interest primarily for government customers. The services segment of L- 1 provides enrolment services to federal and state government agencies and commercial enterprises and financial institutions. We also provide comprehensive consulting services in areas such as; information technology, information analysis, training, security, technology development and many others to the U.S. Intelligence Community.

FB
Can you elaborate on the market focus for the Enterprise Access Division?

L-1
The L-1 Enterprise Access Division’s value to the market extends beyond just offering Biometric authentication devices. We also position ourselves as providing smart and secure access control solutions. The focus of the division is a natural fit with the rest of the L-1 organization in providing secure biometric solutions to our customers. The L-1 Enterprise Access Division has recently released a TWIC reader for use at ports for verification of identity and access control. This complements the upfront work that the Enrolment Services Division has been involved in for years with the enrolment of port workers and issuance of the TWIC card. Having all these capabilities within L-1 allows us to approach a market with a very well rounded suite of applications, products and services which is extremely beneficial to our partners and customers.

FB
I had an opportunity to see your new 4G fingerprint technology platform at ISC West in April. Can you please review some of the new features?

L-1
We are enormously proud of what we have introduced to the market. This has been 18 months in the making. We have been in the biometrics industry for over 15 years and operate around the globe and this was our opportunity to unleash the next generation of the technology. The 4G platform is equipped with state-of-the art biometric and multi-factor authentication, powerful on-board processing for rapid and accurate authentication, sophisticated storage, extensible memory, 802.11 wireless connectivity and full-sized color LCD displays to keep employees and visitors informed with custom messaging.

Our 4G products have transformed from being just a biometric reader to now being a security appliance sitting on an IT network. With that transformation, our products can now do more than just authentication. Our 4G fingerprint readers are now becoming equally attractive and relevant to both a security officer and an IT officer. One of the key breakthroughs in the technology is the architecture itself. This architecture is built as a platform. Most biometric products up to this moment, including our previous generation, were engineered in an autonomous fashion.

The first and one of the most important new capabilities is the scalability of the product. We have moved to the next generation of IT and built a platform which will allow us to scale up and down with many different sizes of deployments and even types of biometrics such as: face, finger and iris. 4G units contain a quantum leap in biometric capabilities, now capable of matching 1 to 10,000, or up to 50,000 using binning techniques with search speeds of 6,000 fingerprint templates per second, compared to the industry average of 1 to 3,000 and matching speeds of 2,000 per second. For large deployments, these next generation units can store 100,000 templates for one-to-one verifications, compared to the industry norm of less than 50,000.

The second capability provides a reduced cost of ownership through multiple components. The field replaceable sensor is really a big step for us and a market first capability. This is a big accomplishment in the biometrics world since 80% of the repairs are related to the replacement of the sensor because this is the part that wears most frequently. It is the part of the device that everyone is constantly touching. This whole serviceability issue is now resolved with the field replaceable Sensor. This replacement can now take place in 4 minutes or less!

Another component in reducing the cost of ownership was preserving backwards compatibility. We have many years of experience with people enrolling on over 300,000 devices with over 35,000,000 templates generated in 90 different countries. We made sure all of those templates are forward compatible…meaning that there is no need for re-enrolment when migrating to 4G. Therefore, with the new technology , all customers who have enrolled in the past using a previous generation of our products can still use their same enrolled template on 4G devices can also continue to use their device as they were with the previous generation.

The third capability is the ability of the device to not only operate as a biometric reader but also as a security appliance or an IT computer (Having that capability, lots of applications can be built right on the device). On the right hand side of the device you have a full functioning color LCD screen which you can use to manage the device and also display different messages for different users, for example, broadcasting a message to all employees, within an organization, etc… This is great because while users are required to gain access to a building using a 4G device, there is more that they can do with it that adds more value to the user access control experience. The device is also capable of being integrated with major Time & Attendance Systems which provides the ability to efficiently manage workforce. Over time applications will be built that will make this device truly an embedded IT computer with very strong biometric capabilities.

FB
What is the target market for 4G?

L-1
The target market is well diversified on one hand, but on the other hand it also has several key markets that we would consider our core target markets. Regarding the broad market, we will continue to market to every organization or entity willing to use biometric access control as their primary authentication method. We will also target all the other entities that are currently using traditional access control methods, like keys, proximity cares, pins, etc. However, we believe this is a much broader market.

We do have several core markets which include Government agencies, airports, maritime ports, large enterprise organizations and critical infrastructure facilities such as nuclear power plants. We are continuing to release more products later this year to support these core markets which include new PIV and TWIC indoor and outdoor solutions all on the 4G platform.

FB
Can you tell us about your 3D facial recognition products?

L-1
3D facial recognition is a fascinating technology that combines a high degree of accuracy that that is based on the shape and structure of a face with an extremely fast authentication process. It is a touch free technology that serves particular types of markets. We have found that there are customers who would much prefer non touch technology and one that they do not feel may be intrusive to them.

FB
Your solutions are used in a number of industries from Financial to Airports, Casinos to Government. Where are you seeing the greatest growth?

L-1
With the economic downturn we are starting to see some of the government sectors grow. In addition to government we see potential for certain segments in health care and the higher education verticals as well. These are segments that are relatively young markets for us and are showing enormous promise. Right around the world we are seeing these market segments start to show interest in the adoption of biometrics for access control.

FB
Has this been a good year for your company?

L-1
Yes it has and for one primary reason. The things that we will do in 2009 would not have been possible if we had not been acquired by L-1. The resources of L-1 Identity Solutions have made it possible to bring the 4G product line to market. We will bring more products to market in 2009 than we did in the last 8 years combined. The pace that we can execute new products, establish new partnerships and develop our existing partners with our new lead program is unmatched. The speed at which we can operate today is at a much higher clock speed than we were ever able to do when we were a small independent company.

For more information about 4G Fingerprint product line, please visit: http://www.l1id.com/pages/488-4g-fingerprint-readers