SIA New Member Profile: Fingerprint Cards AB

New Security Industry Association (SIA) member Fingerprint Cards AB is a leading biometrics company whose solutions are found in hundreds of millions of devices and applications and used billions of times each day. Fingerprints is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, with engineering, sales and support personnel in the United States, Europe, China and Asia Pacific regions.

SIA spoke with John Keuth, head of access sales at Fingerprints, about the company, the security industry and working with SIA.

Tell us the story of your company.

John Keuth: In the 1980s the idea of “a key to everything” was born. It was in a restaurant in Cannes, France, where Swedish film and music producer, Bo Löfberg, saw his own greasy fingerprint on his credit card when paying the bill. An idea was born, and a patent was registered, and in 1997 Fingerprints was founded. Our first mass market was biometric authentication for mobile phones, where we were first to launch biometrics for Android in 2014, and today our sensors are in more than 500 smartphone models. Our focus areas have further expanded into payment, PC and access control. Decades later, we´ve made fingerprint sensors on cards a reality – and so much more. With more than a billion sensors shipped and 10 billion human touches daily, we are as determined as ever to keep moving towards the future where you are the key to everything. The possibilities with touch and touchless biometric solutions are endless.

As biometric authentication is a layer of security, mobile has paved the way into various new use cases that need a both secure and convenient access. Among the many applications are smart door locks and entry systems, personal security and safety, enterprise access cards, USB (FIDO) authentication, storage devices and medical applications.

What solutions/services does your business offer in the security industry? And what makes your offerings/company unique?

JK: We develop and sell biometric systems consisting of 1) fingerprint sensor solutions, 2) biometric software and algorithms (fingerprint and iris) and 3) development and test tools. These solutions can be integrated into a wide range of security products looking for the “third factor” of authentication.

Fingerprints solutions provide leading performance in terms of low false acceptance rate (FAR measures how often the sensor will statistically provide a positive match without the right biometric data), low false rejection rate (FRR measures how often the sensor will wrongfully reject the valid biometric in the matching algorithm) and low spoof accept rate. In addition, our hardware/software solutions offer very low latency in authentication (less than half a second) along with low standby current consumption, ideal for battery-operated applications.

What is something we might not know about your company – or something new you are doing in security?

JK: Fingerprints has shipped over a billion sensors to the market. We have been a leader in contributing biometric expertise to the Android OS and the payments ecosystems. We are serious about security for our users and have been leading development and standardization in this field on a broad front, ensuring that whatever we do, it is scalable and works for multiple customers across all platforms. We are a member of FIDO Alliance, Global Platform, Aadhaar, IFAA, EMVCo, EICC and Eurosmart.

What is your company’s vision, and what are your goals for the security industry?

JK: Our vision is a secure and seamless universe, where you are the key to everything. We do this by providing a safe and convenient identification and authentication with a human touch. Fingerprints is focused on making biometric technology smarter, safer and easier to implement, resulting in increased acceptance, accessibility and user-friendliness. Multifactor authentication has proven to be a beneficial method for increased security; we believe the expanding beyond “what I know” and “what I have” to “who you are” will provide the increased security customers are looking for in a remote environment.

What do you think are the biggest opportunities in the security industry right now?

JK: There is a maturity and there are new demands where we see that biometrics can live up to the requirements of both security and convenience and also demands hygienic solutions. Privacy concerns are also required, and we see that the usage from the mobile sector has paved the way for acceptance of usage for many new areas.

Capacitive fingerprint solutions can be cost-effectively implemented in a wide range of end product volumes and applications; from 10K to millions of units. End user data protection can be readily addressed with closed end systems, which can satisfy GDPR-type requirements.

Additionally, the mixed work environment of continued work at home coupled with returning to offices and facilities – the challenge is to have a single security system to address both realms.

What does SIA offer that is most important to you/your company? And what do you most hope to get out of your membership with SIA?

JK: The opportunity to expand our engagement in the security ecosystem and gain a better understanding of product and user needs, the ability to interface with various security companies and providers to explore if biometrics could be of value to their offerings, the opportunity to collaborate with existing customers who are SIA members, the chance to identify new applications for fingerprint or iris biometrics, industry end user insight that could be of consideration as we define our product road map and technology direction and the opportunity to engage with new companies in the entire value chain within the security industry and share our biometric experience and knowledge.

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.