Texas Awards $30 Million Driver License Contract

The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) awarded Digimarc a contract to design and produce a new secure driver license, and improve issuance security with facial and thumbprint verification. The contract is for 5 years and is valued at nearly $30 million.

The license will include numerous new layered security features. "Our goal in upgrading our driver license is to establish one of the nation's most durable and secure identity documents," said Judy E. Brown, Chief of the Driver License Division, Texas Department of Public Safety.

The five-year contract is anticipated to begin in the summer of 2007. As part of the contract, Digimarc is scheduled to deliver certain aspects of the system in 2006 and early 2007. Among the enhancements included in the new contract are:

• The transition of the Texas license to Digimarc's ExianEvident card architecture;
  
  
• The adoption of facial and thumbprint verification in the Digimarc Identity Validation Suite (IDVS), to detect applicants who are attempting to fraudulently receive a duplicate driver license or a license under a stolen identity; and
  
  
• A new networked image and data collection system designed to process applicants and support the State's goal to establish a multifaceted secure identification solution.

The driver license will be produced in Digimarc's Texas central issue factory.