0% false negative for Dermalog in NIST FRIF identification flats evaluation

German biometric system maker Dermalog has released the results of its NIST Friction Ridge Image and Features (FRIF) Technology Evaluation (TE) 1:N testing.

The company’s fingerprint biometric algorithms achieved notable results in Class B, becoming one of only two participants achieving zero false-negative identifications (FNIR) for matching identification flats at a false-positive identification rate of FPIR ≤ 0.001. The Hamburg-headquartered firm also says it operates more than 10 times faster than the only other system reaching the same benchmark.

“We focus on delivering the optimal balance of precision, speed, and scalability,” says the company’s CEO, Günther Mull. “The latest NIST evaluation clearly demonstrates that Dermalog is built for performance at scale.

The FRIF TE E1N is an open-set identification evaluation of algorithms that automatically extract and use features from all types of exemplar friction ridge images, including rolled fingerprints, palm prints and slaps.  The evaluation measures how accurately and efficiently biometric systems identify individuals within databases containing millions of records.

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) uses the submitted algorithms to match biometrics from three datasets for the evaluation. Class A is made up of index fingers only, Class B consists of 4-4-2 or “identification flat” captures, and Class C includes all ten fingers.

The testing was reintroduced last year as an important reference for governments choosing large-scale ABIS (Automated Biometric Identification System) platforms, such as those for border control, law enforcement, and secure identity issuance.

Geneva-based Tech5 also recently published the results of its FRIF testing, showing its fingerprint biometric algorithms are among the top-performing globally with a 0.0-second search time on a gallery of five million fingerprint records.

Last year, Dermalog showcased its results at NIST’s Proprietary Fingerprint Template (PFT) Evaluation: The company was tied with ROC for the third-lowest false non-match rate (FNMR) at a false match rate (FMR) of 0.0001 with the Arizona Department of Public Safety dataset, at 0.0040 percent.

Dermalog also won a convincing victory in the LivDet-Iris 2025 competition, achieving the highest accuracy for detecting iris biometric spoofing across all four evaluations. The competition was held as part of the IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics in Japan.

Article Topics

biometric matching  |  biometric testing  |  biometrics  |  DERMALOG  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  Friction Ridge Image and Features (FRIF)