Viisage awarded $1 million facial-recognition contract

JULY 26--Viisage Technology Inc. (Littleton, MA; www.viisage.com), a leader in face-recognition technology and identification systems and solutions, has been awarded a $1 million contract by the Massachusetts Cities Collaborative to implement its powerful FaceEXPLORER face-recognition solution to assist police departments during investigative and booking processes. The contract was awarded by the New Bedford, MA, Police Department representing a collaborative of police departments in Auburn, Brockton, Fall River, Fitchburg, Littleton, and New Bedford. The collaborative's program to deploy face-recognition technology received strong support in Congress last year from the Massachusetts' Congressional delegation, led by senior Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), resulting in the $1 million dollar appropriation for the technology's application in the state's police departments.

Utilizing the Viisage's powerful FXP-21 FR engine and FaceEXPLORER as its core, this project will be the first of its kind in the nation to network image databases between the several participating cities, allowing law enforcement to share information in real time. The system is designed to help law-enforcement officials track and identify known terrorists and drug dealers, as well as monitor gang activity. Suspects arrested in any of these communities will have their image compared to the combined databases.

The project will include the design, development, and implementation of a networked, state-of-the-art, scalable face-recognition image-capture system to meet the operational needs of the multiple law enforcement agencies. The system will be patterned after similar systems from Viisage already in use independently by the Auburn, MA, Police Department and the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in Florida. The implementation of the system will begin immediately.