Balancing speed and security at checkpoints, like airports, is essential to ensuring safe, reliable travel.

Many of these checkpoints are increasingly using biometric technology to improve speed and reliability, and while recent improvements in biometrics have lowered failure to match rates, many systems fail to quickly acquire biometric information in the first place.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is hosting a practical exhibition of industry leading biometric technologies as part of the 2019 S&T biometric technology rally, intended to foster innovation, create partnerships across government and industry, and test concepts to meet challenging DHS operational needs.

Built on the success of the first annual Biometric Technology Rally held in March 2018, the series is designed to challenge industry to develop high-throughput biometric systems which meet the requirements of fast and accurate user recognition within DHS operations, such as security checkpoints.

The 2019 Biometric Technology Rally’s focus is on biometric data collection systems for face, iris, or fingerprint, or some combination thereof (multimodal), as well as biometric matching algorithms that can achieve challenging performance targets for high-throughput environments.

Following the rally, DHS will share the results to aid industry in improving product capabilities towards the development of next-generation capabilities.

S&T’s first Biometric Technology Rally aimed to eliminate these obstacles by designing a standard security checkpoint process to test the ability of biometric identity systems to acquire and match images from a diverse volunteer population within a realistic time constraint.

(Balancing speed and security at checkpoints, like airports, is essential to ensuring safe, reliable travel. Many of these checkpoints are increasingly using biometric technology to improve speed and reliability. While recent improvements in biometrics have lowered failure to match rates, many systems fail to quickly acquire biometric information in the first place. Courtesy of DHS Science and Technology Directorate and YouTube. Posted on Jul 27, 2018.)

Innovative systems from 11 industry participants representing 10 countries from around the world were selected to participate in the rally, which challenged industry to meet specific objective performance goals along three interlinked categories of evaluation metrics: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

Effectiveness measured performance of the biometric system, including failures to acquire, process, and match images. S&T challenged industry systems to identify 99 percent of all volunteers using the system in under 20 seconds.

Efficiency measured the average time volunteers spent using each system.  S&T challenged industry to design intuitive systems that volunteers could understand and use in just five seconds.

In addition to these technical metrics, S&T aimed to develop systems that are enjoyable to use as measured by satisfaction feedback. Industry was challenged to provide systems with at least a 95 percent user satisfaction rate.

Over the course of the 10-day event, 364 volunteer test subjects representing a diverse range of ages and demographics performed a total of 4,368 individual system assessments.

DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Honored in the 2018 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Program

• ‘Excellence in Homeland Security’

• Android Team Awareness Kit (ATAK)

• ‘Excellence in Homeland Security’

• Enhanced Dynamic Geo-Social Environ (EDGE) Virtual Online Training for First Responders

• ‘Excellence in Homeland Security’

• Flood Apex Program Flood Sensors

• *DHS S&T is also a 2017 ‘ASTORS’ Award Winner

The Annual ‘ASTORS’ Awards Program is specifically designed to honor distinguished government and vendor solutions that deliver enhanced value, benefit and intelligence to end users in a variety of government, homeland security and public safety vertical markets.

Over 130 distinguished guests representing National, State and Local Governments, and Industry Leading Corporate Firms, gathered from across North America, Europe and the Middle East to be honored among their peers in their respective fields which included:

• The Department of Homeland Security
• The Federal Protective Service (FPS)
• Argonne National Laboratory
• The Department of Homeland Security
• The Department of Justice
• The Security Exchange Commission Office of Personnel Management
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection
• Viasat, Hanwha Techwin, Lenel, Konica Minolta Business Solutions, Verint, Canon U.S.A., BriefCam, Pivot3, Milestone Systems, Allied Universal, Ameristar Perimeter Security and More!

The Annual ‘ASTORS’ Awards is the preeminent U.S. Homeland Security Awards Program highlighting the most cutting-edge and forward-thinking security solutions coming onto the market today, to ensure our readers have the information they need to stay ahead of the competition, and keep our Nation safe – one facility, street, and city at a time.

The 2018 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Program was Proudly Sponsored by ATI Systems, Attivo Networks, Automatic Systems, Desktop Alert, and Royal Holdings Technologies.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2019 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards at https://americansecuritytoday.com/ast-awards/.

Comprehensive List of Categories Include:

Don’t see a Direct Hit for your Product, Agency or Organization?

Submit your category recommendation for consideration to Michael Madsen, AST Publisher at: mmadsen@americansecuritytoday.com.

2018 Champions Edition

See the 2018 ‘ASTORS’ Champions Edition – ‘Best Products of 2018 ‘ Year in Review’ for in-depth coverage of the outstanding products and services of firms receiving American Security Today’s 2018‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards.’

Enter Early to Maximize Media Coverage of your Products and Services at Kickoff, and Get the Recognition Your Organization Deserves!

And be sure to Register Early for the 2019 ‘ASTORS’ Awards Presentation Luncheon at ISC East 2019 to ensure your place at this limited- space event!

2018 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Luncheon at ISC East

Why the 2019 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards Program?

American Security Today’s comprehensive Annual Homeland Security Awards Program is organized to recognize the most distinguished vendors of physical, IT, port security, law enforcement, and first responders, in acknowledgment of their outstanding efforts to ‘Keep our Nation Secure, One City at a Time.’

Why American Security Today?

American Security Today is uniquely focused on the broader Homeland Security & Public Safety marketplace with over 70,000 readers at the Federal, State and local levels of government as well as firms allied to government.

The old traditional security marketplace has been covered by a host of security publications that have changed little over many years.

American Security Today brings forward a fresh compelling look and read with our customized digital publications that provides our readers with solutions to their challenges.

Our Editorial staff provides a full plate of topics for our AST monthly digital editions, AST Website and AST Daily News Alerts.

The editorial calendar and AST’s high drawing website features 23 different Technology and Marketing Sectors such as Access Control, Perimeter Protection, Video Surveillance/Analytics, Airport Security, Border Security, CBRNE Detection, Border Security, Ports, Cybersecurity, Networking Security, Encryption, Law Enforcement, First Responders, Campus Security, Security Services, Corporate Facilities and Emergency Response among others.

These sectors are part of the new integration, where these major applications communicate with one another in a variety of solutions to protect our cities and critical infrastructure.

AST has Expanded readership into vital Critical Infrastructure audiences such as Protection of Nuclear Facilities, Water Plants & Dams, Bridges & Tunnels, and other Potential targets of terrorism.

Other areas of concern include Transportation Hubs, Public Assemblies, Government Facilities, Sporting & Concert Stadiums, our Nation’s Schools & Universities, and Commercial Business Destinations – enticing targets for extremist or lone wolf attacks due to the large number of persons and resources clustered together.