FBI looking at biometric matching algorithms for NGI, issues RFI

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) in Clarksburg, West Virginia issued a Request for Information (RFI) pertaining to market research it is conducting on biometric algorithms that are commercially available from industry.

The FBI is seeking market information on biometric matching algorithms for tenprint, latent fingerprint, face, and iris. These algorithms support three distinct modalities: fingerprint, face, and iris.

The FBI is inviting industry to submit their algorithms for these three distinct modalities to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) biometric vendor testing platforms. The FBI said the results will inform strategic business decisions made by the Bureau as it relates to existing Next Generation Identification (NGI) System algorithms.

CJIS manages the NGI system, which is one of the world’s largest electronic repositories of biometric and criminal history information. The FBI said it “continues to look to new scientific advancements to increase the range and quality of its identification and investigative capabilities.”

The FBI’s CJIS division equips partners with the criminal justice information, including biometrics, that they need to protect the U.S. while protecting civil liberties.

“While it is understood that vendor algorithms can be packaged in various forms to meet the needs of each customer, the matching algorithms themselves should be just as proficient and accurate for biometric matching as the ones submitted to NIST for testing,” the FBI said in its RFI.

The FBI said that “to stay apprised of advances in the biometrics industry, the FBI partners with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to evaluate performance of biometric technology,” which the Bureau said “is accomplished through the various NIST biometric vendor testing platforms, providing the industry with the ability to bring their automated matching technology to NIST to test against biometric data sets for accuracy and performance.”

To be considered in the FBI’s market research, all vendors interested in supplying the FBI with automated biometric matching algorithms must submit their algorithm(s) to NIST no later than January 31, 2025, provide notice to the FBI of their participation in NIST testing, and inform which algorithms were submitted for testing.

The FBI said it “intends to release subsequent RFI’s to industry at later dates to further refine our analysis of the market for these technologies. The RFI’s may include refined benchmarks for accuracy and performance, outline requirements for compatibility and use within the existing environment, history of performance, price points and packaging, amongst other areas of focus.

Article Topics

algorithms  |  biometric matching  |  biometric testing  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  FBI  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  iris biometrics  |  NGI  |  NIST  |  RFI