EDS, PwC, Sun, and Oracle To Unveil Joint Biometric Security Solution

The collaborative alliance efforts that produced the National Integrated Security Suite are aimed at assisting the federal government and airports, in particular, in providing heightened security for both employees and traveling passengers.

Bret Kidd, vice president for EDS Global Transportation Industry Group, said there's been a great deal of focus post-Sept. 11 on the detection of threatening or illegal items at airports, but not as much on the identity of passengers and employees.

"If you take some of the solutions that have been proven in various ways and apply them to the current security situation, we think you can go a long way to further improving security and convenience," says Kidd. "That's what this solution is all about."

The new security solution, said Kidd, builds upon an EDS' biometric airport security system active at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport since 1998. That security system, says Kidd, originally featured a hand geometry scan, but now also includes a facial scan.

The combination biometric and risk assessment technologies that make up the suite can be ready for implementation separately or assembled into a single end-to-end solution. The gathering of process knowledge from PwC, hardware and software from Sun and Oracle, and security integration and implementation experience from EDS, said Kidd, makes for a solid, powerful relationship in the market.

What's being called Known Traveler and Secure Employee are the first transportation security offerings developed through the collaboration between EDS, PwC, Sun, and Oracle.

Known Traveler is a voluntary passenger registration program that enables government security agencies to establish identity and assess the security risk for registered travelers.

Registered passengers must submit to a background check and provide biometric proof of identity in the form of electronic fingerprint and iris scan data. That information will eventually be included on the registered passenger's "smart card," which can be used to authenticate the passenger and used at a kiosk area in the airport.

In addition, EDS is also rolling out millions of smart cards that use finger print biometrics to the U.S. government. Work still has to be done to develop specific federal mandates and guidelines to support these types of initiatives, said Kidd. Eventually, with the proper guidelines in place, these types of solutions will help airlines work together and provide the opportunity for a single infrastructure to support multiple airlines.

Secure Employee is a similar program designed to work with existing employee information to identify and assess security risk. The information can be used to manage access to secured areas and computer systems.

And while the transportation market is the most obvious target, said Kidd, there are opportunities within the airlines such as baggage screening and opportunities that extend to other markets.

"Certainly oil, gas companies come to mind, as well as other forms of law enforcement and immigration and even managing security at large commercial complexes," said Kidd. "It's a common platform that can be useful in many different places."