BKYI could be up nicely on this news - Wednesday January 7, 7:03 am ET
Initial Deployment Provides Healthcare Membership Identification for South African Government Employees
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BIO-key International, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: BKYI - News), the leader in finger-based biometric identification technology, announced today that it has been awarded a contract by Biometric Technologies (PTY) Ltd to deliver Bio-key's WEB-key identification management and authentication solution in a project serving the healthcare industry in South Africa. The first phase will enroll more than 52,500 government employees and integrate with 600 healthcare service providers throughout the country. Web-Key will allow patients and healthcare providers to interact with pharmacies, hospitals, and other medical specialties in various locations to prevent fraud and manage the administration of healthcare benefits.
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BIO-key's partner in this project Biometric Technologies (PTY) Ltd has successfully installed and tested their integrated software at a major medical aid administrator in South Africa. The entire network including enrollment and scanners is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2004. The initial revenue to BIO-key from this phase is $235,000. Future contract potential could grow to include the full membership of this healthcare delivery system of about 2 million people.
"This healthcare deployment adds to our list of projects that offer us recurring revenue streams. This contract further reflects our strategy to become part of larger security and eCommerce solutions provided by major integrators across the globe," said Mike DePasquale, CEO of BIO-key. "We are delighted to be working with Biometric Technologies Ltd on this significant project in South Africa."
Utilizing WEB-key and a fingerprint scanner at each site, medical providers will identify and verify members, their healthcare membership status and share information with other medical providers. BIO-key and Biometric Technologies are demonstrating that positive identification and verification of members enrolled in a major healthcare system can be scaled to handle thousands to potentially millions of individuals in an integrated network environment. This solution will have a dramatic positive impact in managing benefit and service delivery fraud across South Africa.
Edwin Dreyer, CEO of Biometric Technologies (PTY) Ltd said: "Now that South Africa has joined the global village and we have adopted the most up-to- date technology available anywhere in the world, from BIO-key International, the current Ten Billion Rands ($131 million) lost annually to fraud and theft in the private medical industry alone, can be addressed and drastically reduced. This breakthrough into a new application of our joint efforts to provide a sophisticated and holistic solution to an industry under attack by dishonest people with no method previously available to ensure accountability all the way along the supply chain. Irrefutable identification and verification at each transaction site ensures accountability online and real- time. The central BIO-key/WEB-key database carries a record of every member's and service provider's 'BIO-Signature'® (or fingerprint) available to all participants in the Biometric Technologies network.
We are all very excited about the prospects throughout Africa, particularly in the fight against AIDS. Our group is currently negotiating with the Health Authorities on a national rollout of AIDS patients on the BIO- key/Biometric Technologies system of patient tracking to ensure the cost- effective management of this highly emotive and tragic syndrome."
About BIO-key
BIO-key develops and licenses advanced biometric finger identification technologies that are cost effective, scalable and easy to deploy. BIO-key products provide "True User Identification(TM)" that prevents data and identity theft while preventing false aliases. BIO-key pioneered the only finger identification algorithm that has been certified by the ICSA. It offers cost effective, high-performance one-to-many finger and one-to-one identification solutions providing security and positive identification for government and enterprise applications. (www.bio-key.com)
BIO-key Safe Harbor Statement
This news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected on the basis of such forward-looking statements. The words "estimate," "project,'' "intends,'' "expects,'' "believes" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the "safe-harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For a more complete description of these and other risk factors that may affect the future performance of BIO-key International, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10- KSB and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made and the Company undertakes no obligation to disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Contact:
Albert Maruggi
612-325-8126
amaruggi@providentpartners.net
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Source: BIO-key International, Inc.
