Tag Archives: nec

NEC Clouded When Cloud Wasn’t Cool

We think of cloud computing as a novel 21st century invention, but NEC was hosting cloud systems when cloud wasn’t cool.

If you’ve ever heard of the Western Identification Network, you know what I mean.

Look back before Amazon and Microsoft and others offered cloud computing capability. A number of Western states, mostly with low populations, banded together to form the Western Identification Network (WIN). The states shared computing power from a location in California.

The year?

“In January 1988, criminal justice administrators from ten western states met in Boise, Idaho, to determine the feasibility of developing a multi-state Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS)…. In June 1989, the funding was appropriated by legislatures in Alaska, California, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming to create the first multi-state AFIS network.”

1989, when cloud wasn't cool. Google Gemini.
1989, when cloud wasn’t cool. Google Gemini.

NEC has provided biometric services to WIN ever since. This despite my best efforts as a MorphoTrak employee to win the contract from NEC over a decade ago. (But that’s another story.) It would take a couple of more years for MorphoTrak to sell its own cloud offering.

But as NEC is moving its Ohio biometric system to Microsoft Azure Government Cloud, it may also be moving WIN away from its California servers to the Microsoft Azure Government Cloud. It’s a little unclear with WIN’s new Integra-ID 7 system will reside on Microsoft servers or in NEC’s existing server center. I’m trying to pin this down.

My Algorithm is American Made

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.

And if the Amadeus deal goes through, an American investment firm will NOT own the new entity.

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.

The MOSIP “Standard”

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.

For example, in a few years smartphone manufacturers will complain that the EU’s adoption of USB-C as a universal common charger standard will cause the EU to lag behind when new charging technologies emerge.

Which brings us to MOSIP.

What is MOSIP?

So what does this acronym stand for, and what does it mean?

“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:

  • Registration devices.
  • Authentication devices.
  • ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification Systems).
  • SDKs (Software Development Kits).
  • Print devices.
  • Labs.

I won’t list all the MOSIP-compliant solution providers, but there are many of them, including two of the “big three” biometric firms, NEC and Thales.

Any questions?

MOSIP but not MOSIP

I hear a question from the back row from a guy wearing a multicolored wig.

Falco in “Rock Me Amadeus.” From https://youtu.be/cVikZ8Oe_XA.

After all, the third of the “big three,” IDEMIA, has advertised that it provides MOSIP solutions.

“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 Isn’t Afraid of Biometrics Any More

Are the major tech firms about to drive the relatively miniscule identity/biometric firms out of business?

Don’t be evil: stay away from surveillance

I’ve previously discussed the “big three” in biometrics: currently IDEMIA, NEC, and Thales (although IDEMIA may be replaced by Amadeus at some point). These companies are seemingly big, with billions of dollars in revenue…but they are dwarfed by the “really big bunch” of Google, Meta, and whoever else you throw in the category.

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.”

This is why Amazon withdrew Amazon Rekognition, Meta and others are cautious about adding facial recognition to consumer products, and Apple loudly proclaims its commitment to privacy.

But is this changing?

First, the mobile driver’s licenses

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.

Until CLEAR also offered TSA PreCheck.

And Telos did also.

But who cares what these companies are doing? It’s not like a big company like Google is offering TSA PreCheck.

Fast forward to 2026.

“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.

Philmoco Biometric Consulting: Arkansas Fingerprint Expertise

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.

So he knows fingerprints.

And now he’s dispensing his expertise on his own terms…to a specific geographic audience.

“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 Big 3: Only the Names Change

In October 2023, on the occasion of the launch of the Prism Project, Bredemarket published a blog post entitled “The Big 3, or 4, or 5? Through the Years.”

Through many years.

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:

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:

  • IDEMIA.
  • NEC.
  • Thales.

Looking forward to 2027 or 2028

Why am I returning to my 2023 post? Because if all the required investment, regulatory, and government approvals move forward, and assuming no corporate changes that haven’t yet been announced, the 2027 or 2028 version of the “Big 3” will be:

  • Amadeus.
  • NEC.
  • Thales.

Today’s Acronyms are CMMI, ISACA, and NSS

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.

Back in 2016 ISACA acquired the CMMI Institute, which managed CMMI. But the process suites originated earlier.

“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.

It makes me wonder. And if you’re wondering, this is NOT Imagen 4. By Dina Regine – https://www.flickr.com/photos/divadivadina/465006384/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8022602.

Although in this case the two are related.

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:

Bringing all the acronyms together

Focusing on IDEMIA National Security Solutions, the company recently made a CMMI-related announcement:

“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.

Revisiting Amazon Rekognition, May 2025

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

A recent story about Meta face licensing changes caused me to get reflective.

“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.

I last looked at Rekognition in June 2024, when Amazon teamed up with HID Global and may have teamed up with the FBI.

So what’s going on now?

Hard to say. I have been unable to find any newly announced Amazon Rekognition law enforcement customers.

That doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. Perhaps the government buyers are keeping their mouths shut.

Plus, there is this page, “Use cases that involve public safety.”

Nothing controversial on the page itself:

  • “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, INVESTIGATIVE LEAD 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.

We are still in the time of uncertainty…and may never go back.

(Large and small wildebeests via Imagen 3)

NEC’s Other “Biometric” Information: Digital Pathology

(Image: AI-predicted cell detection results of Biomy’s DeepPathFinder™. From the January 10, 2025 NEC press release.)

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”).

Per today’s press release:

“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.

When 250ppi Binary Fingerprint Images Were Acceptable

(Part of the biometric product marketing expert series)

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.

That Mac is now literally a museum piece.

By Tmarki – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8058630.

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).

From https://csrc.nist.gov/nist-cyber-history.

Fingerprints only

When I began working for Printrak in 1994, the image interchange standard in effect was ANSI/NIST-CSL 1-1993, the “Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint Information.”

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.

From https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2021/02/03/ansi-nist-csl_1-1993.pdf

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.

Yup, straight black and white images.

The original uploader was CountingPine at English Wikipedia. – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90286557.

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?
Sound effects not included. By Wilton Ramon de Carvalho Machado – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3572726.

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:

Excludes record types 20-22, 98, and 99. From https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.500-290e3.pdf
  • Type 13, Variable-resolution latent friction ridge image.
  • Type 14, Variable-resolution fingerprint image.
  • Type 15, Variable-resolution palm print image.

We’ve come a long way.

Now that you’ve read this whole thing, I’ll share my video which covers everything in 25 seconds.

Fade to gray.

By the time I upload this video to Instagram, I’ll probably use Instagram’s music facilities to add this song as background music.

  • And note that the band name is spelled Visage with one I, not Viisage with two I’s. (Now part of IDEMIA, along with Printrak.)
  • But the spelling inaccuracy is not surpring. The band can’t spell “gray” either.
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZHk4RwIp_g.