The United States of America, like many other countries, displays patriotism. One example is the Oak Ridge Boys song “American Made.”
And the United States of America, like many other countries, commercializes patriotism. One example is the Miller commercial “Made the American Way.”
At the time this commercial was filmed, Miller WAS American made, under the ownership of Philip Morris. Today, of course, Miller is NOT solely American made, with the company owned by Molson Coors with headquarters and executive offices in Chicago, Montreal, and Golden Colorado. Its brand competitor Budweiser is Belgian made.
I am very familiar with cross-border ownership, having worked for Safran (French headquarters) and IDEMIA (French headquarters, but primarily owned by a U.S. investment firm). So when someone asks whether IDEMIA is a U.S. company or a French company, the proper answer is “yes.”
IDEMIA’s major competitors, NEC and Thales, are non-U.S. owned.
But there are U.S. biometric firms. Bredemarket works or has worked for multiple U.S.-owned/headquartered biometric companies.
One company that is not (yet) a Bredemarket client is ROC (a/k/a Rank One Computing). Since it works with U.S. security agencies, you can bet that ROC echoes the Oak Ridge boys in its marketing. Josh Engelsma:
“For decades, large-scale U.S. biometric identity systems have relied heavily on foreign fingerprint providers. ROC’s performance in the NIST FRIF TE E1N evaluation, including #1 global ranking in Class B slap fingerprints, a critical capture format for high-scale civil and government identity programs, proves that American technology can now lead at the highest levels of global biometric performance.”
It’s hard to predict whether U.S. government agencies will become “more patriotic,” since there are so many good foreign algorithms out there. But don’t count on DHS implementing a system with a Chinese algorithm.
I’ve previously discussed the false impression that standards achieve recognition via a free, fair, universal consensus. In truth, standards are bullied through the process by one or more interested parties, who then shut out competitors that don’t comply with their…I mean, the industry’s standard.
Meanwhile, companies that don’t comply with the standard ridicule it and say how the standard stifles innovation and brings the whole industry down.
“The Modular Open Source Identity Platform was established in 2018 to support governments in providing its residents with an official form of the most important human asset – identity.
“As nations around the world proceed on their digital transformation journeys towards true digital economies, a robust and secure national ID system is the crucial first step. With a foundational national ID system in place, a government can build effective civil registries, and service delivery systems, serving the population in a myriad of ways. Among other benefits, robust systems like these enable faster disaster relief, climate resilience, ease of starting new businesses, and better access to financial inclusion, healthcare, and education.”
Established and incubated in Bangalore, India, MOSIP is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and supported by the Gates Foundation and others.
In case you didn’t get the drift, the MOSIP people aren’t regular visitors to Mar-a-Lago.
But their principles align with the goals of many biometric companies that have chosen to list their MOSIP-compliant products on the MOSIP Marketplace.
The marketplace categorizes MOSIP-compliant solutions into six categories:
“The Togolese Agency for Identification, ANID-TOGO, has partnered with IDEMIA and Atos to build a national biometric eID system based on the Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP). IDEMIA and Atos will design, build, test, and run a biometric national eID solution for Togo based on iris, face, and fingerprint recognition technology.”
Sounds impressive…until you scan the MOSIP Marketplace and find no listed solutions from IDEMIA or ATOS.
Because “based on” does not equal “compliant with.”
I can say that Bredemarket’s seven-question process is based upon some marketing standard or another, but that doesn’t mean that an independent third party has certified my compliance, or even stated its conformance.
So why doesn’t IDEMIA offer MOSIP-compliant solutions?
Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t had regular official contact with IDEMIA in years, and the person that I know who just rejoined IDEMIA probably doesn’t know either.
So I have no authoritative answer, but Google Gemini provides this very unauthoritative answer as to IDEMIA’s MOSIP non-compliance:
“IDEMIA’s core business model historically relies on end-to-end, proprietary solutions. MOSIP, by contrast, is an open-source framework designed specifically to prevent vendor lock-in by letting governments mix-and-match components from different tech providers.”
Let’s assume for the moment that Gemini is right in this case. So while IDEMIA may be willing to speak about a solution in Togo “based on” MOSIP, when IDEMIA goes after a critically important opportunity in the FBI or the CIA or the BBC (you know the rest), it’s going to provide a solution based upon IDEMIA-authored components such as its own MorphoKit software development kit.
Knowing full well that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t give a hoot about MOSIP compliance.
Because it’s not critically important in that market.
Know Your Market
Some biometric vendors focus on the developing world, some adopt the developing world as a secondary opportunity, and others just don’t care because their real revenue comes from elsewhere.
Where should your company focus its attention?
Bredemarket can help your company with analysis, and provide focused content as the analysis progresses. (Analysis is never complete. Things change.)
If Bredemarket can help you decide if MOSIP compliance is worthwhile or worthless, schedule a free meeting.
The Really Big Bunch could smash the Big Three in a heartbeat, if they wanted to.
Why haven’t they?
Because they have very active consumer sales that don’t affect IDEMIA and the like, and are terrified that any entry into biometric “surveillance” will adversely affect their lucrative consumer business. So they all concentrated on “don’t be evil.”
IDEMIA and Thales offer physical driver’s licenses, and moving into mobile driver’s licenses is a natural. I observed this during my time at IDEMIA, as (then) Gemalto pursued numerous mDL opportunities and IDEMIA responded in turn.
As part of my efforts to educate myself in the driver’s license market dominated by our new corporate overlords MorphoTrust, I attended an AAMVA regional conference several years ago. IDEMIA was obviously there, as was Gemalto. But also attending the conference was Apple. Why? I asked.
Apple wasn’t visible over the next few years as IDEMIA and Thales expanded their mobile driver’s license implementations. But all of a sudden, Apple was visible, as was Google, as was Samsung.
Why? Because these smartphone providers all had their own wallets, and they were adding mDLs to their offerings.
Which meant that someone who wanted a mobile driver’s license could use the convenient smartphone wallet they already had.
Were Apple and Google entering the surveillance state? Of course not, because Apple and Google were really nice people who were providing these wallets for our convenience and benefit. Never mind the facial recognition underpinning their use. There was nothing to worry about. Absolutely nothing.
Until they targeted the airports.
Second, TSA PreCheck
As a former IDEMIA employee, TSA PreCheck was near and dear to my heart. Well, until IDEMIA’s revenue tanked in 2020 when nobody flew or got driver’s licenses…and I lost my job.
But absent a worldwide pandemic, TSA PreCheck had been very very good to IDEMIA, since only IDEMIA offered it. Sure CLEAR had its program, but TSA PreCheck was much cheaper.
“The Transportation Security Administration today announced a new partnership with Google Wallet, introducing a more seamless way for eligible travellers to opt in to TSA PreCheck® Touchless ID. Google Wallet is the first digital wallet to offer this innovative feature, making secure, efficient travel easier than ever.”
Yup, Google and the Department of Homeland Security are now best buddies. To some civil libertarians, this is evil indeed.
What’s next?
So how long until the really big bunch prime contracts for systems such as NGI and HART? They have a responsibility to their shareholders, after all.
It’s true that most of your independent consultants aren’t newcomers in their industries. (If they are newcomers, they aren’t any good.)
That’s certainly the case with Phillip Moore’s latest endeavor, Philmoco Biometric Consulting. He has worked with fingerprints for decades.
I worked with Phil after Safran acquired Motorola’s “Printrak” biometric business unit and merged it with Sagem Morpho to create MorphoTrak. (He came from Sagem Morpho, I from Printrak.) Oddly enough, we primarily worked on driver’s license proposals together (which was actually the domain of our chief competitor, Safran’s own MorphoTrust).
Before Sagem Morpho and MorphoTrak, Phil worked for NEC, Crossmatch, Smith Heimann Biometrics, and Identix. After MorphoTrak, Phil worked for Fulcrum Biometrics and other fingerprint firms.
“I help Arkansas organizations understand fingerprinting requirements, workflows, and equipment needed to offer compliant fingerprinting services.”
Compliant with what? Compliant with requirements to submit fingerprints to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system and not having them get rejected.
So if you’re performing fingerprinting in Arkansas, Phil’s your expert. Reach him via Facebook.
The post discussed the evolution of the large Automated Fingerprint Identification System vendors, now large Automated Biometric System vendors that support face and other biometric modalities.
And the evolution will continue.
From 1986 to March 2009
Although I could have gone back to Autonetics in the 1960s, I didn’t. I started my version of the story in the 1980s, when the “big 3” were:
De La Rue Printrak.
Morpho Systems.
NEC.
The 2023 post detailed a number of changes over the next two decades, including the emergence of new companies, the results of a particular NIST test (FpVTE 2003) that put a temporary damper on my professional life, and some acquisitions.
A lot of acquisitions.
For our purposes I will fast forward to March 2009, when I argue there were a “Big 5”:
Cogent Systems.
L-1 Identity Solutions.
Motorola (my employer).
NEC.
Safran.
Sounds nice and neat, but I said to “hang on to your seats.”
From April 2009 to 2011
Because everything changed in the next two years. Here’s how I described it in the 2023 post:
By 2009, Safran (resulting from the merger of Sagem and Snecma) was an international powerhouse in aerospace and defense and also the had identity/biometric interests. Motorola, in the meantime, was no longer enjoying the success of its RAZR phone and was looking at trimming down (prior to its eventual, um, bifurcation). In response to these dynamics, Safran announced its intent to purchase Motorola’s Biometric Business Unit in October 2008, an effort that was finalized in April 2009. The Biometric Business Unit (adopting its former name Printrak) was acquired by Sagem Morpho and became MorphoTrak. On a personal level, Dorothy Bullard moved out of Proposals and I moved into Proposals, where I got to work with my new best friends that had previously slammed Motorola for losing the Kansas and New Mexico deals. (Seriously, Cindy and Ron are great folks.)
By 2011, Safran decided that it needed additional identity capabilities, so it acquired L-1 Identity Solutions and renamed the acquisition as MorphoTrust.
From 2011 to 2023
So now there were just three again: 3M, NEC, and Safran. And that’s where we remain today, with some name changes: part of 3M was carved off to become part of Gemalto, part of Safran was carved off to become part of IDEMIA, and all of Gemalto was absorbed by Thales.
So by the time C. Maxine Most identified her “Big 3 ID,” they were:
I’m going to discuss the acronyms CMMI and NSS, which I’ve kinda sorta discussed before but never in combination. (And as an added bonus I’ll discuss one more acronym.)
Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI)
Back in February and in April I made passing references to CMMI, which stands for the Capability Maturity Model Integration. But I only mentioned it in passing because my experience is with the older Capability Maturity Model (CMM).
Imagen 4.
Who manages the CMMI?
Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
Back in March and in April I either explicitly referenced or implicitly quoted from ISACA, which is the Information Systems Audit and Control Association.
“CMMI was originally developed at the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center within Carnegie Mellon University.”
Imagen 4.
Thus ISACA governs all CMMI-related activity, including assessments and certifications.
Which brings us to…
National Security Systems (NSS) and National Security Solutions (NSS)
‘Cause you know sometimes acronyms have two meanings.
When a foreign-owned company wants to do business with the sensitive parts of the U.S. federal government, they have to set up a set up an entity that is free from foreign ownership, control, or influence. This is FOCI, a bonus acronym for you today.
Imagen 4.
In the biometric world, there are two notable FOCI-mitigated subsidiaries of foreign companies:
IDEMIA National Security Solutions (NSS), a subsidiary of the primarily U.S.-owned IDEMIA. Primarily, but not exclusively, because a small sliver of IDEMIA is French-owned.
“IDEMIA National Security Solutions (NSS), a subsidiary of IDEMIA, the leading provider of secure and trusted biometric-based solutions, is proud to announce that it has successfully earned re-certification at level 3 of ISACA’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®).”
Imagen 4.
You’ll recall that the CMMI levels go up to Level 5. So IDEMIA NSS is not at the maximum CMMI level, but Level 3 is impressive enough to issue a press release.
IDEMIA NSS’ extensive federal government work dictates that it maintain a number of certifications and conformances. CMMI gives the government agencies assurance that IDEMIA NSS provides its products according to specific quality and process improvement standards.
“This openness to facial recognition could signal a turning point that could affect the biometric industry.
“The so-called “big” biometric players such as IDEMIA, NEC, and Thales are teeny tiny compared to companies like Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. If the big tech players ever consented to enter the law enforcement and surveillance market in a big way, they could put IDEMIA, NEC, and Thales out of business.
“However, wholesale entry into law enforcement/surveillance could damage their consumer business, so the big tech companies have intentionally refused to get involved – or if they have gotten involved, they have kept their involvement a deep dark secret.”
Then I thought about the “Really Big Bunch” product that offered the greatest threat to the “Big 3” (IDEMIA, NEC, and Thales)—Amazon Rekognition, which directly competed in Washington County, Oregon until Amazon imposed a one-year moratorium on police use of facial recognition in June 2020. The moratorium was subsequently extended until further notice.
“Have appropriately trained humans review all decisions to take action that might impact a person’s civil liberties or equivalent human rights.”
“Train personnel on responsible use of facial recognition systems.”
“Provide public disclosures of your use of facial recognition systems.”
“In all cases, facial comparison matches should be viewed in the context of other compelling evidence, and shouldn’t be used as the sole determinant for taking action.” (In other words, INVESTIGATIVELEAD only.)
Nothing controversial at all, and I am…um…99% certain (geddit?) that IDEMIA, NEC, and Thales would endorse all these points.
But why does Amazon even need such a page, if Rekognition is only used to find missing children?
Maybe this is a pre-June 2020 page that Amazon forgot to take down.
Or maybe not.
Couple this with the news about Meta, and there’s the possibility that the Really Big Bunch may enter the markets currently dominated by the Big Three.
Imagine if the DHS HART system, delayed for years, were resurrected…with Alphabet or Amazon or Meta technology.
When I interact with the worldwide company NEC, I am usually dealing with automated biometric identification systems (ABIS).
Of course, ABIS is only a small part of what NEC does. It’s also involved in healthcare.
Consider…artificial intelligence and deep learning-powered digital pathology (“a field involving the digitization and computational analysis of pathology slides”).
“NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and Biomy, Inc. (Biomy) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a joint marketing partnership to develop and expand artificial intelligence/deep learning (AI/DL)-based analytical platforms in the field of digital pathology. Through this partnership, the two companies aim to promote precision medicine for cancer patients and contribute to the advancement of the healthcare industry.”
So what is Biomy contributing?
“Biomy, which aims to realize personalized medicine through pathological AI technology, has developed DeepPathFinder™, a proprietary, cloud-based, AI/DL automated digital pathology analytical platform.”
And NEC?
“NEC has positioned healthcare and life sciences as a core pillar of its growth strategy. With a strong foundation in image analysis and other AI technologies, NEC has a long history of providing medical information systems such as electronic medical records to healthcare institutions.”
As I’ve said before, healthcare must deal with privacy concerns (protected health information, or PHI) similar to those NEC addresses in its other biometric product line (personally identifiable information, or PII). I personally can’t do nefarious things if I fraudulently acquire your digital pathology slide, but some bad actors could. Presumably the Biomy product is well protected.
I remember the first computer I ever owned: a Macintosh Plus with a hard disk with a whopping 20 megabytes of storage space. And that hard disk held ALL my files, with room to spare.
For sake of comparison, the video at the end of this blog post would fill up three-quarters of that old hard drive. Not that the Mac would have any way to play that video.
And its 20 megabyte hard disk illustrates the limitations of those days. File storage was a precious commodity in the 1980s and 1990s, and we therefore accepted images that we wouldn’t even think about accepting today.
This affected the ways in which entities exchanged biometric information.
The 1993 ANSI/NIST standard
The ANSI/NIST standard for biometric data interchange has gone through several iterations over the years, beginning in 1986 when NIST didn’t even exist (it was called the National Bureau of Standards in those days).
Yes, FINGERPRINT information. No faces. No scars/marks/tattoos. signatures, voice recordings, dental/oral data, irises, DNA, or even palm prints. Oh, and no XML-formatted interchange either. Just fingerprints.
No logical record type 99, or even type 10
Back in 1993, there were only 9 logical record types.
For purposes of this post I’m going to focus on logical record types 3 through 6 and explain what they mean.
Type 3, Fingerprint image data (low-resolution grayscale).
Type 4, Fingerprint image data (high-resolution grayscale).
Type 5, Fingerprint image data (low-resolution binary).
Type 6, Fingerprint image data (high-resolution binary).
Image resolution in the 1993 standard
In the 1993 version of the ANSI/NIST standard:
“Low-resolution” was defined in standard section 5.2 as “9.84 p/mm +/- 0.10 p/mm (250 p/in +/- 2.5 p/in),” or 250 pixels per inch (250ppi).
The “high-resolution” definition in sections 5.1 and 5.2 was twice that, or “19.69 p/mm +/- 20 p/mm (500 p/in +/- 5 p/in.”
While you could transmit at these resolutions, the standard still mandated that you actually scan the fingerprints at the “high-resolution” 500 pixels per inch (500ppi) value.
Incidentally, this brings up an important point. The series of ANSI/NIST standards are not focused on STORAGE of data. They are focused on INTERCHANGE of data. They only provided a method for Printrak system users to exchange data with automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS) from NEC, Morpho, Cogent, and other fingerprint system providers. Just interchange. Nothing more.
Binary and grayscale data in the 1993 standard
Now let’s get back to Types 3 through 6 and note that you were able to exchange binary fingerprint images.
Why the heck would fingerprint experts tolerate a system that transmitted binary images that latent fingerprint examiners considered practically useless?
Because they had to.
Storage and transmission constraints in 1993
Two technological constraints adversely affected the interchange of fingerprint data in 1993:
Storage space. As mentioned above, storage space was limited and expensive in the 1980s and the 1990s. Not everyone could afford to store detailed grayscale images with (standard section 4.2) “eight bits (256 gray levels)” of data. Can you imagine storing TEN ENTIRE FINGERS with that detail, at an astronomical 500 pixels per inch?
Transmission speed. There was another limitation enforced by the modems of the data. Did I mention that the ANSI/NIST standard was an INTERCHANGE standard? Well, you couldn’t always interchange your data via the huge 1.44 megabyte floppy disks of the day. Sometimes you had to pull your your trusty 14.4k or 28.8k modem and send the images over the telephone. Did you want to spend the time sending those huge grayscale images over the phone line?
So as a workaround, the ANSI/NIST standard allowed users to interchange binary (black and white) images to save disk space and modem transmission time.
And we were all delighted with the capabilities of the 1993 ANSI/NIST standard.
Until we weren’t.
The 2015 ANSI/NIST standard
The current standard, ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 Update 2015, supports a myriad of biometric types. For fingerprints (and palm prints), the focus is on grayscale images: binary image Type 5 and Type 6 are deprecated in the current standard, and low-resolution Type 3 grayscale images are also deprecated. Even Type 4 is shunned by most people in favor of new friction ridge image types in which the former “high resolution” is now the lowest resolution that anyone supports:
On September 30, FindBiometrics and Acuity Market Intelligence released the production version of the Biometric Digital Identity Prism Report. You can request to download it here.
But FindBiometrics and Acuity Market Intelligence didn’t invent the Big 3. The concept has been around for 40 years. And two of today’s Big 3 weren’t in the Big 3 when things started. Oh, and there weren’t always 3; sometimes there were 4, and some could argue that there were 5.
So how did we get from the Big 3 of 40 years ago to the Big 3 of today?
The Big 3 in the 1980s
Back in 1986 (eight years before I learned how to spell AFIS) the American National Standards Institute, in conjunction with the National Bureau of Standards, issued ANSI/NBS-ICST 1-1986, a data format for information interchange of fingerprints. The PDF of this long-superseded standard is available here.
When creating this standard, ANSI and the NBS worked with a number of law enforcement agencies, as well as companies in the nascent fingerprint industry. There is a whole list of companies cited at the beginning of the standard, but I’d like to name four of them.
De La Rue Printrak, Inc.
Identix, Inc.
Morpho Systems
NEC Information Systems, Inc.
While all four of these companies produced computerized fingerprinting equipment, three of them had successfully produced automated fingerprint identification systems, or AFIS. As Chapter 6 of the Fingerprint Sourcebook subsequently noted:
Morpho Systems resulted from French AFIS efforts, separate from those of the FBI. These efforts launched Morpho’s long-standing relationship with the French National Police, as well as a similar relationship (now former relationship) with Pierce County, Washington.
NEC had deployed AFIS equipment for the National Police Academy of Japan, and (after some prodding; read Chapter 6 for the story) the city of San Francisco. Eventually the state of California obtained an NEC system, which played a part in the identification of “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez.
After the success of the San Francisco and California AFIS systems, many other jurisdictions began clamoring for AFIS of their own, and turned to these three vendors to supply them.
The Big 4 in the 1990s
But in 1990, these three firms were joined by a fourth upstart, Cogent Systems of South Pasadena, California.
While customers initially preferred the Big 3 to the upstart, Cogent Systems eventually installed a statewide system in Ohio and a border control system for the U.S. government, plus a vast number of local systems at the county and city level.
Between 1991 and 1994, the (Immigfation and Naturalization Service) conducted several studies of automated fingerprint systems, primarily in the San Diego, California, Border Patrol Sector. These studies demonstrated to the INS the feasibility of using a biometric fingerprint identification system to identify apprehended aliens on a large scale. In September 1994, Congress provided almost $30 million for the INS to deploy its fingerprint identification system. In October 1994, the INS began using the system, called IDENT, first in the San Diego Border Patrol Sector and then throughout the rest of the Southwest Border.
I was a proposal writer for Printrak (divested by De La Rue) in the 1990s, and competed against Cogent, Morpho, and NEC in AFIS procurements. By the time I moved from proposals to product management, the next redefinition of the “big” vendors occurred.
The Big 3 in 2003
There are a lot of name changes that affected AFIS participants, one of which was the 1988 name change of the National Bureau of Standards to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). As fingerprints and other biometric modalities were increasingly employed by government agencies, NIST began conducting tests of biometric systems. These tests continue to this day, as I have previously noted.
One of NIST’s first tests was the Fingerprint Vendor Technology Evaluation of 2003 (FpVTE 2003).
For those who are familiar with NIST testing, it’s no surprise that the test was thorough:
FpVTE 2003 consists of multiple tests performed with combinations of fingers (e.g., single fingers, two index fingers, four to ten fingers) and different types and qualities of operational fingerprints (e.g., flat livescan images from visa applicants, multi-finger slap livescan images from present-day booking or background check systems, or rolled and flat inked fingerprints from legacy criminal databases).
Eighteen vendors submitted their fingerprint algorithms to NIST for one or more of the various tests, including Bioscrypt, Cogent Systems, Identix, SAGEM MORPHO (SAGEM had acquired Morpho Systems), NEC, and Motorola (which had acquired Printrak). And at the conclusion of the testing, the FpVTE 2003 summary (PDF) made this statement:
Of the systems tested, NEC, SAGEM, and Cogent produced the most accurate results.
Which would have been great news if I were a product manager at NEC, SAGEM, and Cogent.
Unfortunately, I was a product manager at Motorola.
The effect of this report was…not good, and at least partially (but not fully) contributed to Motorola’s loss of its long-standing client, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to Cogent.
The Big 3, 4, or 5 after 2003
So what happened in the years after FpVTE was released? Opinions vary, but here are three possible explanations for what happened next.
Did the Big 3 become the Big 4 again?
Now I probably have a bit of bias in this area since I was a Motorola employee, but I maintain that Motorola overcame this temporary setback and vaulted back into the Big 4 within a couple of years. Among other things, Motorola deployed a national 1000 pixels-per-inch (PPI) system in Sweden several years before the FBI did.
Did the Big 3 remain the Big 3?
Motorola’s arch-enemies at Sagem Morpho had a different opinion, which was revealed when the state of West Virginia finally got around to deploying its own AFIS. A bit ironic, since the national FBI AFIS system IAFIS was located in West Virginia, or perhaps not.
Anyway, Motorola had a very effective sales staff, as was apparent when the state issued its Request for Proposal (RFP) and explicitly said that the state wanted a Motorola AFIS.
That didn’t stop Cogent, Identix, NEC, and Sagem Morpho from bidding on the project.
After the award, Dorothy Bullard and I requested copies of all of the proposals for evaluation. While Motorola (to no one’s surprise) won the competition, Dorothy and I believed that we shouldn’t have won. In particular, our arch-enemies at Sagem Morpho raised a compelling argument that it should be the chosen vendor.
Their argument? Here’s my summary: “Your RFP says that you want a Motorola AFIS. The states of Kansas (see page 6 of this PDF) and New Mexico (see this PDF) USED to have a Motorola AFIS…but replaced their systems with our MetaMorpho AFIS because it’s BETTER than the Motorola AFIS.”
But were Cogent, Motorola, NEC, and Sagem Morpho the only “big” players?
Did the Big 3 become the Big 5?
While the Big 3/Big 4 took a lot of the headlines, there were a number of other companies vying for attention. (I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worthwhile to review it again.)
Identix, while making some efforts in the AFIS market, concentrated on creating live scan fingerprinting machines, where it competed (sometimes in court) against companies such as Digital Biometrics and Bioscrypt.
The fingerprint companies started to compete against facial recognition companies, including Viisage and Visionics.
Oh, and there were also iris companies such as Iridian.
And there were other ways to identify people. Even before 9/11 mandated REAL ID (which we may get any year now), Polaroid was making great efforts to improve driver’s licenses to serve as a reliable form of identification.
In short, there were a bunch of small identity companies all over the place.
But in the course of a few short years, Dr. Joseph Atick (initially) and Robert LaPenta (subsequently) concentrated on acquiring and merging those companies into a single firm, L-1 Identity Solutions.
These multiple mergers resulted in former competitors Identix and Digital Biometrics, and former competitors Viisage and Visionics, becoming part of one big happy family. (A multinational big happy family when you count Bioscrypt.) Eventually this company offered fingerprint, face, iris, driver’s license, and passport solutions, something that none of the Big 3/Big 4 could claim (although Sagem Morpho had a facial recognition offering). And L-1 had federal contracts and state contracts that could match anything that the Big 3/Big 4 offered.
So while L-1 didn’t have a state AFIS contract like Cogent, Motorola, NEC, and Sagem Morpho did, you could argue that L-1 was important enough to be ranked with the big boys.
So for the sake of argument let’s assume that there was a Big 5, and L-1 Identity Solutions was part of it, along with the three big boys Motorola, NEC, and Safran (who had acquired Sagem and thus now owned Sagem Morpho), and the independent Cogent Systems. These five companies competed fiercly with each other (see West Virginia, above).
In a two-year period, everything would change.
The Big 3 after 2009
Hang on to your seats.
The Motorola RAZR was hugely popular…until it wasn’t. Eventually Motorola split into two companies and sold off others, including the “Printrak” Biometric Business Unit. By NextG50 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130206087
By 2009, Safran (resulting from the merger of Sagem and Snecma) was an international powerhouse in aerospace and defense and also had identity/biometric interests. Motorola, in the meantime, was no longer enjoying the success of its RAZR phone and was looking at trimming down (prior to its eventual, um, bifurcation). In response to these dynamics, Safran announced its intent to purchase Motorola’s Biometric Business Unit in October 2008, an effort that was finalized in April 2009. The Biometric Business Unit (adopting its former name Printrak) was acquired by Sagem Morpho and became MorphoTrak. On a personal level, Dorothy Bullard moved out of Proposals and I moved into Proposals, where I got to work with my new best friends that had previously slammed Motorola for losing the Kansas and New Mexico deals. (Seriously, Cindy and Ron are great folks.)
By 2011, Safran decided that it needed additional identity capabilities, so it acquired L-1 Identity Solutions and renamed the acquisition as MorphoTrust.
If you’re keeping notes, the Big 5 have now become the Big 3: 3M, Safran, and NEC (the one constant in all of this).
While there were subsequent changes (3M sold Cogent and other pieces to Gemalto, Safran sold all of Morpho to Advent International/Oberthur to form IDEMIA, and Gemalto was acquired by Thales), the Big 3 has remained constant over the last decade.
And that’s where we are today…pending future developments.
If Alphabet or Amazon reverse their current reluctance to market their biometric offerings to governments, the entire landscape could change again.
Or perhaps a new AI-fueled competitor could emerge.
The 1 Biometric Content Marketing Expert
This was written by John Bredehoft of Bredemarket.
If you work for the Big 3 or the Little 80+ and need marketing and writing services, the biometric content marketing expert can help you. There are several ways to get in touch:
Book a meeting with me at calendly.com/bredemarket. Be sure to fill out the information form so I can best help you.
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