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Bioscrypt Knowledge Bank

Learn more about biometric trends from our growing list of resources, including White Papers, Case Studies, Video Demonstrations, and more.

Topics include:

Airport Security
HSPD-12
Biometric Innovations
3D Face Recognition
Fingerprint Sensor Interoperability

NEW: 3D Face – Texas Instruments Dev Day Demo (10 min)

Industries > Government Access Control > PIV

PIV - Access Control & Identity Management of Government Employees/Contractors

The United States government program known as Personal Identity Verification (PIV) addresses the secure credentialing requirements of federal employees and contractors and is based on FIPs 201. To assist agencies choosing the appropriate products when implementing a PIV program, there is a General Services Administration (GSA) certified product list.

Biometrics is an important part of FIPs 201 adding multiple factors of authentication for identification processing. Traditionally access control systems have relied on ID cards that can be stolen, lost, shared or copied. With a biometric template, such as a face or fingerprint template stored on the card, there is a secure and efficient way to ensure the person holding a card is the rightful owner.

The Bioscrypt Advantage

Bioscrypt's PIV-Station fingerprint reader helps United States federal organizations meet the PIV requirements mandated by HSPD-12 by bringing Bioscrypt's long-standing expertise in the biometric access control market to the FIPs 201 program. FIPs 201 requires all government agencies and contractors to authenticate civil servants and employees using stronger authentication methods, including fingerprint biometrics, for physical and logical access control. In order to meet the FIPS 201 standard, Bioscrypt ported its FIPS 201-approved Minutiae Interoperability Exchange (MINEX) algorithm to a high performance digital signal processor (DSP) from Texas Instruments which is embedded in the reader. The inclusion of the DSP also allows the PIV-Station to be extremely flexible and extensible to accommodate current and future technical specifications for the evolving federal programs.

The PIV-Station increases security at federal buildings by adding a biometric layer of authentication – a unique identification factor that cannot be lost, copied or stolen. Nearly 3 million federal employees, 6 million state employees and 500,000 contractors will be enrolled in the program, making it one of the largest biometric projects to date, according to IMS research.

The PIV-Station has received General Service Administration (GSA) approval as a FIPS 201-compliant Card Holder Unique Identifier (CHUID) Reader (Contact) and CHUID Reader (Contactless) - making it the first fixed Physical Access Control reader to be certified in both categories. The reader also incorporates Bioscrypt's GSA-approved ANSI/INCITS 378 fingerprint template and is currently undergoing testing by GSA in the biometric reader category.

In order to enable organizations dealing with legacy infrastructure to maximize their investments, the PIV-Station is capable of supporting card-read protocols, such as DESFire and MIFARE.

For more information on Bioscrypt's PIV-Station and how we can help in the government market, contact us. For more information on United States government credentialing programs, view and download Bioscrypt's white paper, "Understanding HSPD-12 Biometric Identification Requirements."

Related Government Credentialing Programs: