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DHS Seeks Biometrics to Identify Individuals in Crowds

The S&T Directorate announced a third biometrics rally.

The Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate has announced the third Biometric Technology Rally, which will be used to search for systems capable of identifying individuals in crowds. Credit: Illus_man/Shutterstock

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is calling for submissions to the 2020 Biometric Technology Rally. Started in 2018, the rally challenges industry to deliver fast, accurate and easy-to-use biometric recognition capabilities to improve security and user facilitation of checkpoint processing, according to an S&T press release.

Building on high-throughput biometric technology capabilities demonstrated by industry over the last two years, the 2020 rally will now focus on the technical challenge of reliably identifying small, free-flowing groups of individuals in crowded environments, like airports or ports of entry.

DHS S&T is calling for industry to submit applications to participate in the 2020 rally, to be held at the Maryland Test Facility in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, later this fall. Testing will be performed in controlled scenarios relevant to DHS operations. Providers of face and multimodal biometric acquisition systems, as well as providers of biometric matching algorithms, are encouraged to participate.

To be considered for participation, interested organizations must submit applications no later than April 30, 2020. Detailed application instructions for both acquisition and matching system providers will be posted at the Maryland Test Facility website and discussed at the Connect:ID 2020 and a DHS S&T webinar in March 2020.