Excerpts from today's Published Interview
December 9, 2015
We read with great interest the recent announcement regarding ImageWare Systems (OTCQB: IWSY) under which ImageWare will integrate its patented Biometric Engine® into the Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) IDHaystack™ Identity as a Service (IDaaS) Platform. Please tell us more about this collaboration and why ImageWare?
John Mears: In short, Imageware had commercially developed some key components of our vision for IDHaystack™, and had already integrated with many of the top biometric algorithm providers. By licensing from Imageware, we could make progress more quickly and save our precious research and development money for components that incorporate discriminating Lockheed Martin technology. Since there was little overlap between the components Imageware could provide and the markets they address versus what we could provide and address, it seemed like a good point of departure for a collaboration.
What is your perspective John on some of the major applications for IDHaystack™…are Border Security, Immigration and Mobility in the mix here?
John Mears: Certainly, and those are three good use cases to consider, among many others. For example, as countries around the world deal with the pressures of migration and immigration, border security is coming to the forefront as an important driver of biometric identification systems. In the U.S., as an example, we have a biometric entry system, but not a biometric exit system. DHS OBIM and CBP with DHS S&T are stepping up to the challenge of making entry and exit processing both more secure through biometrics, as well as more friendly to the travelers to our country, while pragmatically addressing the costs. Applications like IDHaystack™ could provide some answers to the challenges those agencies face. We’ve all seen the trend on the part of mobile device vendors toward incorporating biometrics for device authentication. The objective isn’t that different from the border security objectives. Make our lives more secure while providing convenience and flow. For example, as our first responders move toward the adoption of smart phone-based mobile devices to do their critical work, they will have to authenticate themselves securely and conveniently for device access on a nationwide basis. Cloud-based authentication services such as those offered by IDHaystack™ could facilitate this vision.
Are there any success stories use cases you’d like to talk about?
John Mears: Although I can’t discuss specific customer implementations, let me give you an example of how IDHaystackTM is typically used at this stage. In this use case, the customer is using IDHaystack™ to determine if they’ve seen a person before. If the person has been seen before, they can do a verification on their next encounter. If not, the person is enrolled as a new subject. In this use case, the customer already has their own user interface and workflow engine, and they are calling IDHaystack™ as a biometric service to do the matching or enrollment as required. The customer likes this offering because of the flexibility and ease of incorporation into their application, as well as the ability to buy only what’s needed as a service.
In today’s IoT environment, and we could not agree more with Lockheed Martin on this point, a “…person’s unique identity is their best protection “. Care to elaborate for us on this point?
John Mears: Ah, you are quoting from our website. I don’t think we are the only ones who believe this, however. Many of our Government customers have been expanding the uses of their Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards for application access to include multiple authentication factors. The idea is to provide more secure access to data that is sensitive to all of us. In fact, if you look at the NIST publication called FIPS-201, they talk about levels of security with varying factors of authentication. Lowest levels of security are with the commonly used IDs and passwords. The highest levels are achieved with three-factor authentication including biometrics. These multiple factors including biometrics help assure that it really is uniquely me when I log on and gain access to sensitive data. This protects not only me, but all of us who have a stake in using, but also protecting, sensitive data.
What resources are available for the authentication and ID community at lockheedmartin.com ?
John Mears: Information about Lockheed Martin biometrics is available on our website. It includes a list of articles describing our work over the years. I hope you’ll enjoy reading about our work in support of this important community.
Thanks again for joining us today, John. Are there any other subjects you would like to discuss?
John Mears: We’ve largely focused today on applications for law enforcement, homeland security, data security and mobility, which are great applications for our technology. There are military and international applications as well. We are fortunate in our industry to live in a time of growth across a number of customer types and industries. Thank you, for the opportunity to speak to you today.
AI
