BIO-key acquires Swivel Secure Europe to expand multi-factor authentication in region

BIO-key has announced the acquisition of Madrid-based digital identity and access management (IAM) and multi-factor authentication provider Swivel Secure Europe, S.A., to extend the reach of its identity-bound biometrics throughout the European, Middle East and African markets.

Swivel Secure Europe (SSE) has more than 300 customers in the education, government, banking, finance, healthcare and manufacturing markets, which BIO-key takes over, along with EMEA sales of Swivel Secure products. The need for MFA within the region is high, BIO-key says.

The acquisition gives BIO-key a sales and support team with contact throughout the EMEA region, and SSE CEO and sole stockholder Alex Rocha will assume responsibility for BIO-key’s operations in the region. It also adds technology partnerships with SAP, SailPoint and RedHat and global reseller partnerships with Arrow, Deloitte, Accenture, Logicalis, IBM, Telefonica and Wipro to BIO-key’s Channel Alliance Partner (CAP) program. The partners, BIO-key says, will help customers make use of its MFA solutions.

SSE generated $3.1 million in revenue and $578,000 in operating income during its fiscal 2021 year, according to the announcement.

“Swivel Secure Europe and its talented team have established a deep network of partners and customers across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and this acquisition significantly strengthens BIO-key’s presence in those regions,” states BIO-key Chairman and CEO Michael DePasquale. “We are seeing cyber attacks and threats grow in sophistication and scale and as a result, demand for proven IAM solutions continues to grow. We look forward to expanding our global sales footprint and to supporting Swivel Secure Europe’s customers and partners through an award-winning and cost-effective portfolio of existing and new IAM and identity-bound biometric solutions.”

The acquisition is expected to close in February. Terms were not disclosed.

“BIO-key is a respected leader in identity and access management and civil identification in the North America, Africa and Asia,” says Rocha. “We’re excited to bring our team, customers and partners to join BIO-key in helping expand its worldwide footprint. We have longstanding relationships with many customers and believe that this combination will deliver improved capabilities and service levels for customers globally.”

PortalGuard to secure staff access for South Dakota county

BIO-key announced it was selected by Lawrence County, South Dakota, to supply its PortalGuard IAM platform and WEB-key biometric authentication.

Staff will use PortalGuard’s MFA with 17 options including WEB-key biometrics, for single sign-on (SSO) access to county applications and data.

Lawrence County will use PortalGuard to consolidate its IAM technologies and identity controls, meet its insurance requirements, and support its adoption of a zero trust architecture. PortalGuard that BIO-key highlighted is the variety of IAM security controls, ranging from capabilities to seventeen different available authentication methods, including biometric authentication.

The platform is said to enable Lawrence County from having to mandate that employees use their personal phones for work purposes by implementing a WEB-key biometric solution as the primary authentication factor for access to workstation login security. This would satisfy cyber insurance requirements, BIO-key says.

“Only a flexible and powerful approach to IAM security can help organizations meet the increasing challenges of today’s threat landscape,” comments Mark Cochran, president of BIO-key – PortalGuard. “We are proud to provide our county government customers with cost-effective solutions to secure their operations, improve their user experience, and implement unified security controls that verify users’ identities with a passwordless approach.”

The partnership with Lawrence County adds to BIO-key’s work with U.S. counties and states, such as  election boards in Brevard, Collier and Orange County in Florida, several other counties in Florida before the 2019 and 2020 elections, and a West Coast state.

Article Topics

access management  |  acquisitions  |  BIO-key  |  biometrics  |  cybersecurity  |  digital identity  |  identity access management (IAM)  |  identity management  |  multifactor authentication