Arizona Public Safety Officials get Biometric Search Tool for Driver's Licenses

The Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) has chosen ImageWare Systems Inc. to expand their use of the IWS Biometric Engine, a scalable identity management solution that is hardware and software independent.

The IWS Biometric Engine enables users to manage database populations of unlimited sizes and conduct multimodal (using specific or multiple biometric types), comparative biometric searches. These searches can be exhaustive (1:n) for identification, specific (1:1) for identity verification or investigative (x:n) for purposes such as watch lists. The IWS Biometric Engine is vendor neutral and supports the capture, search and verification of all types of biometrics including, but not limited to, civil and NIST-compliant face and fingerprint, iris, palm, signature, hand geometry, and voice.

AZDPS will use IWS Biometric Engine to conduct facial recognition searches on a copy of all driver license images from the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) contained in the AZAFIS/MPI subsystem. The AZAFIS/MPI subsystem is a statewide system that houses images for law enforcement investigative purposes. Participating law enforcement agencies throughout Arizona will now have the ability to search against the MPI main criminal database, as well as the driver license database.

"The Arizona Department of Public Safety has been successful using ImageWare's law enforcement solutions to assist our investigators in solving crime," said Cyndy Pellien of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. "The ability to search the driver license database using ImageWare's biometric search engine further enhances our investigative procedures, and will assist in reducing identity fraud cases across the state. We are dedicated to protecting our citizens and confident this initiative will further improve the state's mission."