Technology companies Morpho, AA Technology, 3M Cogent and NEC have ranked best for their fingerprint identification technologies in the recent Fingerprint Vendor Technology Evaluation, which was conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
In the last decade, biometric technologies that use fingerprint scanning technologies have been utilized globally as a highly dependable method for personal authentication. This authentication helps to prevent identity fraud throughout areas such as law enforcement, national IDs, voter management and immigration control.
The Fingerprint Vendor Technology Evaluation was organized to mimic potential operational requirements, such as application with National ID systems and criminal investigations.
Tests were carried out with large-scale fingerprint images collected across a wide range of organizations, such as police departments and government institutions, to conduct accuracy assessments on search, identity confirmation and other tasks. The fingerprint database used in the testing included around 5m sets of fingerprint data, the largest database in the NIST’s benchmark testing history.
The fingerprint scanning technologies testing was conducted primarily to assess the current capabilities of fingerprint matching algorithms using operational datasets containing several million subjects. There were three classes of participation that examined one-to-many identification using various finger combinations from single finger up to ten fingers.
Class A used single-index finger capture data and evaluated single index finger (right or left) and two index finger (right and left) identification. Class B used identification flat (IDFlat) captures (4-4-2; left slap, right slap, and two thumbs simultaneously) and evaluated ten-finger, eight-finger (right and left slap), and four-finger (right or left slap) identification. Class C used rolled and plain impression (4-4-1-1; left slap, right slap, left thumb, and right thumb) captures and evaluated ten-finger rolled-to-rolled, ten-finger plain-to-plain, and ten-finger plain-to-rolled identification. Enrollment sets used for one-to-many identification varied in size from 5,000 up to 5,000, 000 enrolled subjects.
| Company Name | Participation Class |
| afis team | A, B, C |
| 3M Cogent | A, B, C |
| Neurotechnology | A, B, C |
| Papillon | A, B, C |
| Dermalog | A, B, C |
| Hisign Bio-Info Institute | A, B, C |
| NEC | A, B, C |
| Sonda | A, B, C |
| Tiger IT | A |
| Innovatrics | A, B, C |
| SPEX | A, B, C |
| ID Solutions | A, B, C |
| id3 | A |
| Morpho | A, B, C |
| Decatur Industries | A, B, Cs |
| BIO-key | A |
| Aware | A, B, C |
| AA Technology | A, B, C |
The most accurate fingerprint scanning technologies submissions were 3M Cogent, Morpho, NEC, AA Technology and Innovatrics. The right index finger was more accurate than the left index finger. The most accurate submission, 3M Cogent, achieved a false positive identification rate (FNIR) of 1.97% for the left index finger and 1.9% for the right index finger searched against an enrollment set of 100,000 subjects
Morpho, AA Technology, 3M Cogent and NEC were the top performing devices in the Class B two-finger identification test with Morpho taking out the top spot with an FPIR of 0.27% searched against a set of 1.6m subjects.
The most accurate submissions for Class C, which included ten-finger identification for plain and rolled impression types, were NEC, Morpho, 3M Cogent and AA Technoloy with FNIRs ranging from 0.1% to 0.19% for ten-finger plain impressions and ten-finger rolled impressions.
NEC achieved top ranking in the 10 finger identification tests, producing the best fingerprint matching results for Class C among the 18 companies and organizations that took part in the testing with a FPIR of 0.1%.
“NEC is extremely proud of its top ranking. This is the second consecutive time NEC technology is ranked as the best in large scale ten finger identification tests conducted by NIST,” said Hiroshi Suzuki, General Manager, 2nd Government and Public Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.
“The NIST evaluated vendors’ authentication technologies through blind testing in an objective and accurate way, and with the cooperation and support of the US Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Department of Defense and other government branches. We are delighted that the results of the latest benchmark tests have once again demonstrated the superiority of NEC’s fingerprint authentication technologies.
“Following these results, NEC will continue to develop and sell products and services, including its Integra-ID and MBIS, which capitalize on its leading biometric authentication technologies and further strengthen its business.”
A range of different systems using the the NEC technologies have been introduced in more than 40 countries around the world, such as a national ID system in South Africa and a wide range of systems for government and city police departments in the United States, including the Western Identification Network.
NEC Corporation of America recently announced the release of the NeoScan 45 mobile fingerprint collection device, which the company said is the thinnest and lightest multi-figerprint capture device.
Designed for public safety applications in the field, NeoScan 45 delivers simultaneous two-finger capture. This solution from NEC features a large (1.6″ x 1.5″) scanning platen for better image quality and greater accuracy, as proven by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).
