Arizona DoT facial recognition administrator joins FaceTec to spur gov’t deals

A new veteran of the public digital identity sector has joined FaceTec, with Faith Contreras appointed as director of government outreach to promote and manage the deployment of the company’s biometric technologies into major public sector ID-issuing authorities, both domestic and international.

FaceTec is in the midst of a strategic expansion beyond its established wheelhouse in biometric onboarding and authentication to bring 3D face liveness, biometric matching and its UR Codes to public sector identity authorities. Nicole McNamee-Wicks was appointed FaceTec’s director of biometric cybersecurity in February, and Owen McShane was appointed the company’s VP of government relations last August. Between them, they have over 50 years of experience with U.S. public sector organizations like the SSA OIG and NY DMV.

Contreras arrives at FaceTec with more than 30 years of experience with the Arizona Department of Transportation. Most of that time was spent with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) in its Enforcement and Compliance Division (ECD). During that time, Contreras implemented the state’s Driver’s License Security Program, and she has held the post of facial recognition program administrator since 2013.

During her time with the OIG, Contreras collaborated with the multi-agency Forensic Images Unit within the Arizona Department of Public Safety. She also oversaw the Law Enforcement Coordination Unit, which handles confidential nationwide law enforcement programs, according to the company announcement.

Pairing public sector biometrics experience and tools for adoption

“Faith’s insight from her years of front-line experience will help us deliver the most value to the agencies that adopt the UR Code protocol in state and federal governments, providing guidance and education about their broad applications and benefits, and of FaceTec’s 3D Liveness and 3D Face matching software, the world-leading, state-of-the-art solution in digital identity verification,” says Kevin Alan Tussy, FaceTec CEO, in the announcement.

FaceTec launched the encoding software to enable issuers to create UR Codes to bind people to their IDs in March.

“I am very excited to become a part of the talented team at FaceTec, and to contribute to their important, meaningful work in biometric identity verification,” Contreras comments.

She says that FaceTec’s liveness detection and biometrics for binding legal identity to rightful account holders “is proven daily to be exceptionally effective, preventing fraud and identity theft in countless industries around the world. FaceTec software provides users easy-to-use, privacy-preserving and secure methods to prove their identity, and is available to everyone, regardless of their device,” Contreras adds. “I look forward to helping solve increasingly important identity-related challenges.”

Article Topics

appointments  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  FaceTec  |  government services  |  UR Codes