<html>
<font size=4>Industry Leaders Join Forces to Bring Exciting
Biometrics<br>
Technologies to the Mainstream PC Marketplace<br>
<br>
LA Times<br>
27-APR-98<br>
<br>
Compaq, IBM, Microsoft, Novell and Others Form Consortium to
Develop<br>
Standards for Fingerprint, Voice and Face Recognition
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS<br>
WIRE)-- April 27, 1998--Compaq Computer Corp., IBM Corp.,
Identicator<br>
Technology, Microsoft Corp., Miros Inc. and Novell Inc. (representing
the<br>
SVAPI(A) Committee) today announced the formation of a consortium
dedicated<br>
to working with the industry to develop standards that will dramatically
improve<br>
the identification and authentication of PC users. <br>
<br>
The BioAPI Consortium is committed to making biometrics technologies --
initially<br>
fingerprint, voice and face recognition -- more readily available to the
mainstream<br>
commercial marketplace, helping to establish broad cross- industry
endorsement<br>
and support. The Consortium plans to provide standardized
Application<br>
Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can be incorporated into operating
systems<br>
and application software. These standard APIs will provide customers
access to a<br>
wide variety of biometric hardware and software products, as well as
allow them<br>
to readily utilize products from different vendors. <br>
<br>
"The U.S. Government has been developing and sponsoring fingerprint,
voice and<br>
facial biometric technology over the past 10 years," said Mark
Krawczewicz, a<br>
representative of the Biometrics Consortium(B). "Biometrics have
been<br>
recognized as a key technology for reducing national security risks to
strategic,<br>
tactical and network applications. We are encouraged by this announcement
of the<br>
commercial sector merging biometrics with network products for robust
user<br>
authentications." <br>
<br>
"MasterCard has completed extensive testing of biometric customer
authentication<br>
technologies and has concluded that biometrics holds the ultimate
security key to<br>
future payment systems," said Joel Lisker, Senior Vice President,
MasterCard<br>
International. "We therefore applaud the efforts by the BioAPI
Consortium in<br>
developing compatibility standards for biometrics." <br>
<br>
"As commercial organizations move to distributed computing
environments, it is<br>
becoming ever more important to control access to classified
corporate<br>
information," said Bill Perry, Senior Project Manager for Barclays
Bank PLC.<br>
"These biometric technologies go beyond passwords and raise the bar
for<br>
identifying computer users. I need the flexibility to swap out biometric
products<br>
from different vendors as easily as I am able to exchange my office or
banking<br>
applications." <br>
<br>
The founding Consortium companies, referred to as "Promoters,"
will develop a<br>
draft BioAPI specification, as well as incorporate comments received from
other<br>
contributing participants ("Contributors"). In addition to
providing input on the draft<br>
APIs, "Contributors" will help the Consortium develop the final
specification. The<br>
Consortium will also be comprised of "Adopters," who will lend
their support to the<br>
final standard by incorporating the APIs into their products. The
Consortium will<br>
make available a high-level API description and a statement of scope in
the third<br>
quarter of 1998. For more information, potential "Contributors"
and "Adopters" can<br>
contact the Consortium's secretary, Tom Koenig, at
tom.koenig@compaq.com.<br>
<br>
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