The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is seeking industry applications for its Biometric Technology Rally to bring together industry innovators that can help advance DHS’s enterprise operations.
In its third rally since DHS began the initiative in 2018, the agency is calling for applications from members of the private sector with a biometrics background to participate. At the rally, DHS will test industry biometrics products in controlled scenarios relevant to agency priorities.
“Past rallies were limited to testing technologies using individuals one at a time to help industry identify and address the challenges of processing people in high-throughput use cases. Now, it’s time to take the training wheels off and see how well these systems deal with more realistic conditions,” Arun Vemury, director of the DHS S&T Biometric and Technology Center, said.
Private sector representatives will first test their tech in an initial individual processing phase and, if successful, move on to the advanced group-processing phase. Data collected during these tests will be used to “assess the performance and interoperability of matching algorithms.”
“We believe that this structured scenario will challenge the biometrics industry to continuously innovate for the benefit of travelers and DHS stakeholders,” Vemury said of the process.
DHS is accepting applications to participate in the rally through April 30.
