NEC continues cooperation with WIN on biometric matching for law enforcement

NEC has announced a deal to provide the latest version of its integrated biometric workstation to a consortium of U.S. state and local law enforcement agencies.

The Western Identification Network (WIN), which covers eight western states, will upgrade to the latest release of Integra-ID 7 from NEC in order to modernize its identification infrastructure, according to the technology firm.

WIN is the U.S.’s first multistate biometric network, created in the 1980s to share fingerprint data across state lines. The consortium began using NEC’s Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS) and has since undergone multiple upgrades.​

“WIN has a long history of providing reliable, high-performance identification services to its member states,” says Chad Butler, CEO of WIN, “By upgrading to the latest release of Integra-ID 7, WIN is positioning its agencies to take advantage of cloud-native innovation, advanced biometrics, and continuous delivery of new capabilities without the disruption of traditional system upgrades.”

The new release of Integra-ID 7 is designed to keep up with evolving security requirements and ensure government agencies have access to modern biometric tools, adds Eugene Le Roux, senior vice president at NEC America.​

The system offers a microservices-based architecture designed to improve performance and introduce new features, such as expanded biometric and investigative capabilities. This includes the ACE-V web applications for analysis, comparison, evaluation, and verification in latent case processing and iris biometric template storage and matching.​

The system allows storage and matching of scars, marks, and tattoos (SMT) and expanded biometric search across multiple modalities. Algorithms are automatically updated to NEC’s latest NIST-tested matching technology, the firm notes.

NEC’s cooperation with U.S. law enforcement agencies spans beyond Integra-ID. Among its public security suite of products is the NeoFace system, introduced well over a decade ago and is used by ICE as part of the agency’s Mobile Fortify facial recognition app

Biometrics in a federated environment, however, present inherent challenges, as states differ in laws governing fingerprint searches, storage, and other biometric data, NEC points out in a paper on its cooperation with WIN.

With eight member states, implementing distinct components for each would undermine the system’s cost-effectiveness. WIN addressed this by standardizing workflows, data specifications, and adopting open standards – most notably the NIST record formats and the FBI’s Electronic Biometric Transmission Specifications (EBTS). This common framework enables seamless information sharing across agencies and supports the addition of new biometric modalities in the future.

WIN covers Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, and has an interface connection with the California Department of Justice.

Article Topics

biometric matching  |  biometrics  |  law enforcement  |  NEC  |  NEC America  |  Western Identification Network