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Monday, August 20, 2007

Local Firm's Scanner Heading to Iraq

By Andrew Webb
Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Staff Writer
    A high-tech— but hardy— fingerprint scanner designed and manufactured in Albuquerque will join the military's arsenal of tools for security and investigation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    Albuquerque-based Lumidigm's light-based devices scan a finger's subdermal structures, such as capillaries, to get accurate prints in dry, sandy conditions. Those conditions have plagued the 3,000 to 4,000 conventional fingerprint scanners already in use overseas, said Kathy DeBolt, program manager for the U.S. Army Intelligence Center's Biometrics Automated Toolset program.

[+] Click to enlarge Photo courtesy Lumidigm This is Lumidigm's new Venus Series light-based fingerprint scanner. This smaller, less expensive version of its scanner is designed for use in high-volume applications such as door access control, and employee time and attendance. Lumidigm on a Roll, with a New Scanner and An Award august 13 story

    "We're convinced this will be a whole new way to take fingerprints to a whole new level," she said.
    The company is expected to receive $2 million in federal defense funds for the scanners, pending final approval of the 2008 Defense Appropriations Act.
    They are already in use around the world for building and grounds access control, tracking of immigrant entry and exits, and other purposes.
    The military's biometrics program, which has been developed over the last decade, uses iris and fingerprint scans and massive computer databases, to track workers, prisoners, enemy combatants and others at military bases and in war-torn countries like Kosovo and Iraq.
    DeBolt said the databases can be used to identify fingerprints found on bomb fragments or other evidence.
    U.S. Rep Heather Wilson, R-N.M., helped secure the $2 million in funding for Lumidigm and Science Applications International Corp., or SAIC, a La Jolla, Calif.-based defense contractor that has worked on software and database systems for the BAT program since the late 1990s. The contract calls for 50 prototypes and software systems.
    Lumidigm's device, unlike current tools, "will be robust enough to use in a variety of conditions, so the 19-year-old at the gate knows this guy is who he says he is," Wilson told the Journal on Friday.
    DeBolt said the U.S. Army Intelligence Center first looked at Lumidigm a year ago, when its first products were on the market. But those devices were too large, she said.
    The company recently released a line of scaled-down, lower-cost fingerprint scanners designed for high-volume production. They are manufactured locally by Delta Electronics.
    Besides working in poor environmental conditions or bright light, Lumidigm's scanner also captures a fingerprint from fingers that have been scarred or otherwise damaged, DeBolt said.
    "We want to eventually develop a whole hand print device," she said.
    The 2008 Defense Appropriations Act must still pass the Senate, and receive the president's signature before it goes into effect.
    Lumidigm employs 29 and expects to hire an additional 10 under the new program.