Interview with IBIA Chairman Walter Hamilton

Feature Company

Interview with Walter Hamilton, Chairman International Biometric Industry Association (IBIA) and Vice President & General Manager, Biometric Solutions SAFLINK Corporation
May 2006

Can you please provide our readers with a brief background of the IBIA?

The IBIA is a non-profit trade association, headquartered in Washington, D.C., that represents manufacturers, integrators and solution providers within the Biometrics Industry. IBIA has 30 member firms and it is doing good work in the area of biometric education and public policy advocacy. As a trade association, IBIA tries to influence public policy related to biometrics and takes positions to advocate and defend our members on issues of common interest and concern.

What are some of the other goals of the organization?

The organization is deeply involved in things like biometric interoperability standards. We work closely with the U.S. biometric standards organization, M-1, and act as the official registration authority for the international standard for biometric data exchange formats, which is administered by ISO.

We also work closely with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on any biometric standards and testing programs that they are leading on. As major biometric programs are conceived, we work to make sure that the requirements for such programs are appropriate for the use of the technology and will be successful. As an example, we worked closely with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) last year to advise them on their Guidance Package for using biometrics in airport access control systems prior to its publication.

We also are involved through education to help organizations that plan to implement biometric technology receive the maximum benefits. Through presentations at conferences and other forums, we try to highlight the considerations surrounding the use of each biometric technology in order to match expectations with reality. Not all Biometrics fit every application exactly the same way, so we try to use our resources at the trade association to make sure that organizations are informed as to how to get the maximum benefit from it.

What types of initiatives does the IBIA utilise to accomplish those goals?

We have several working groups that are staffed by member volunteers from our organization that address specific areas. One is Public Policy and Advocacy, which tracks legislation on Capital Hill and in the State legislatures that could affect Biometric interests and to try to influence those policies to the maximum benefit of our industry. For example, we were recently successful in convincing the Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to change their procurement strategy so that the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program would be awarded under full and open competition instead of a restricted sole source award as was previously planned. This working group also gets involved in public rule-making and policy around major initiatives like the Real ID Act for drivers' licenses and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative.

We will be formulating comments from our members soon to submit to TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard in response to their Notice of Public Rule Making related to the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, which is just now being published for public comment. This group's focus is particularly at the Federal Government level in the United States given the focus of our members, which are predominately based in North America.

We also have a Technology and Standards working group that tracks pending international and national standards. This group was particularly active and helped influence the new NIST standard for Federal Personal Identity Verification in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12).

We also work closely with the Smart Card Alliance, Security Industry Association, the Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board, M-1, ISO and other organizations that are developing standards related to biometrics, smart cards and public key infrastructure.

We also have an International Liaisons working group that provides an interface to international organizations that have similar interests to IBIA such as the International Association for Biometrics in the United Kingdom, European Biometric Forum and Japan Biometric Consortium. And we also have a group that is involved with Marketing and Education to help us with our messaging and outreach communications.

And finally, our Membership and Recruitment working group explains the benefits of membership to prospective IBIA members and provides them with materials that give them an understanding of their roles and how they might be able to participate in the growth of the industry.

Now just a follow-up on some of those particular areas -- for example -- who is allowed to become a member of the IBIA?

IBIA membership is open to those organizations that are manufacturers of Biometric technology -- it could be software, it could be hardware sensing devices, for example. It also includes those organizations that provide solutions around the technology, perhaps they don't make the core devices or core technologies but they integrate it into a solution that they sell. It also includes system integrators -- organizations that actually work to develop end solutions that incorporate Biometrics. Those are the voting class members of IBIA. We also have non-voting class members who include members of the media, academia, consulting firms and the like, and even individual members can join if they are not affiliated with a potential voting class member.

To follow up more on standards, this is a very important area right now for Biometrics in general. What role does IBIA play in International Standards Bodies?

IBIA is an official liaison to ISO, the International Organization for Standards Special Committee 37 (SC 37), which is involved specifically with Biometrics. We provide input and counsel to this body with respect to societal and privacy implications of Biometrics in the context of international standards. We also have an official standing with ISO with respect to performing the role of what is called a registration authority for one of the Biometric data interchange standards which is called Common Biometric Exchange Framework Format, or CBEFF for short. That standard is a way of representing Biometric information in a standard format and it provides header information that describes the name of the organization that created the format and so there needs to be an authority that registers those and provides a unique numbering system for those registrations of what we call the format owner and IBIA serves the role for ISO and the official registration authority for the Common Biometric Exchange Network Format.

What would you say are the key benefits of becoming a member of the IBIA?

One of them is the ability to be made aware of issues of common concern to the industry and to be able to have the leverage of an industry trade association with a very powerful voice in addressing those issues that are of a common concern. It also provides an ability of the members to interact with one another and to be able to communicate and to understand areas of common interest, even though they might compete aggressively outside of the association. Because IBIA is chartered under the US tax code as a 501C6 non-profit organization, we do provide anti trust protection for our members so that they can come together and interact on issues of common concern without being accused of illegal practices having to do with anti-trust matters. So it provides a special legal framework for our members to work together.

It also allows our member organizations to directly interact with key policy makers and legislators, particularly in the United States, with respect to those issues that they consider important and of general interest to our membership. So it is nice to know that you have an organization that represents you and can speak with a single unified voice on those major issues of concern to our industry, and those would be things like procurement practices, privacy, security of biometric data, standards and the appropriate use of Biometrics in particular application scenarios.

You mentioned that member companies could participate in IBIA sponsored events, etc. Could you give us an example of one of those?

Sure! On May 24th the IBIA is going to be sponsoring, in conjunction with the United States House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, a Biometric Technology

Fair and that will be on Capitol Hill. It is an all-day technology demonstration event and will include a luncheon with a panel of guest speakers to help inform members of Congress on the capabilities and benefits of biometrics. I think 18 of our member firms have signed to have their products exhibited in the main hall of the House Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C. So that is an exciting way for us to engage and interact with policy makers, including Congressional members and staff, and to help make them more aware of Biometrics, the various technologies and their capabilities, and how they can be applied to such security applications as critical infrastructure protection, border security, transportation security as well as for consumer applications such as protecting mobile devices including laptop computers and cell phones and things of that type.

Well that is a wonderful opportunity for your member base!

Absolutely it is! And it gives our members great exposure and name recognition for very little expense.

Walter, how does an interested company go about becoming involved with IBIA?

First they should probably visit our web site at www.ibia.org and look at the different categories or classes of membership, look at the postings there of coming events and news information and also on the different working groups and their roles and functions to see where they might feel that they could actively participate and benefit. The cost of the membership is quite low and it is tiered against annual revenues of the member firm and the maximum dues per year is $15,000 and the lowest level for Class 1 voting members is only $3,750 per year and you get a lot of return for that. For example, we have a daily news service that we send to all our members. We blast that out each morning and it recaps the news of the day related to biometrics and tells about coming events and pending legislation. Anything noteworthy going on in the industry is channelled out to our members on a daily feed basis and there is no additional cost for that service.

Well thank you very much for filling us in -- it sounds like the organization is really gaining tremendous momentum!

Absolutely! We appreciate the opportunity to speak with you, Peter, and we will continue to do everything that we can to help advance the interests of the Biometrics community and make the technology more effective and useful for our customers.

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