Biometric technology vital for Mid East aviation and maritime sectors

Commenting on the company's participation, Tony Murphy, Chief Operations Officer and Founding Director of Daon said, "The Middle East is one of the fastest growing markets for the deployment of biometric technologies after the United States. The region is witnessing heightened interest in the use of biometrics for e-gate/registered traveller programmes expediting the secure movement of pre-registered travellers through border points."

Murphy added, "Daon delivers proven biometric identity assurance software products that specifically address the needs of large-scale government security programmes as well as access control requirements of enterprise worldwide. We feel it is important to support such a regional ground breaking event. During APTS, we will be demonstrating our product capabilities showing iris, finger and facial technology. We will extend our knowledge to customers and prospects at our booth on Stand 31."

According to Murphy, border control security is being implemented across the world to manage the movement of people and cargo across country borders while visitor management systems are being deployed to securely manage entry and exit to various countries.

Citing an example Murphy said, "This technology sea change in the approach to border security particularly high volume entry points such as ports and airports is best illustrated by the recently unveiled US-VISIT and TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential) programmes in the United States."

The highly publicised US-VISIT programme has been introduced to manage the entry and exit of people to America and has seen nation wide large scale deployments of biometrics at border crossings across the country. The TWIC programme has been deployed to improve security within the US transportation system through the establishment of a system-wide common credential. To date over 200,000 transportation workers with access to air, sea and land ports at over 30 sites in six states have been enrolled.

An additional dimension being rapidly adopted by organisations is employee access control to buildings and networks to protect their assets.

None of this could be achieved without the application of biometric technology which offers enhanced security to protect a country's borders, its citizens and employees as well as an individual's privacy.

There are several biometric projects currently planned or underway in the Middle East including the Abu Dhabi Police E-Gate Tender whereby the Abu Dhabi Police intend to introduce a turnkey solution for a fast track frequent traveller facility (e-gate) at various international airports in the UAE.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry Of Interior is implementing a traveller biometric identification project and Kuwaiti Border Security will implement a
border security system at all border entry and exit points.

The biometric industry is set grow exponentially and industry experts predict that by 2008, a massive US$4.6 billion will be being spent globally on biometric technologies.

It is widely expected that the major players in biometrics will push for the development and adoption of industry standards that ensure a degree of interoperability across devices, algorithms and systems. This will reduce price and increase functionality for access control and logical access systems as well as reduce the power and size requirements for biometric sensors.

The market perspective will be driven by core technology enhancements and improved business practice on the part of biometrics vendors to ensure biometric growth.