INCITS Announces the Approval of Five Biometric Data Interchange Format Standards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Shannon Feaster
(202) 626-5725 or sfeaster@itic.org

INCITS Announces the Approval of Five Biometric Data Interchange Format Standards

Groundbreaking standards will support implementation of open-based biometrics solutions for Homeland Security and other government and commercial authentication applications.

Washington, DC, July 29, 2004 - The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) announced today that five data interchange format standards developed by INCITS Technical Committee M1 – Biometrics have been approved as American National Standards Institute (ANSI) INCITS standards.

“Government and commercial users need the timely development of biometric standards in support of highly secure identification and verification solutions,” said Fernando Podio, Chair of INCITS M1 Technical Committee. Podio is a member of the Computer Security Division of the Information Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and is responsible for NIST’s biometrics standards program. “I expect that the recently approved standards and others in the portfolio of standards under development in INCITS M1 will pave the way for interoperable systems and applications based upon these consensus-based standards,” Podio said.

The recently approved standards are the first in a series of biometric standards under development in INCITS M1 which includes standards for biometric data interchange formats, common biometric file formats, biometric application program interfaces, biometric application profiles, biometric performance testing and reporting, and biometric conformance testing methodologies.

"Biometric technologies will play an important role in homeland security and other applications, and we at INCITS are working with US government agencies, industry organizations and biometrics experts to address critical security needs identified by our government and commercial users of biometric technologies," said Karen Higginbottom, Chair of the INCITS Executive Board. Higginbottom is the Director of Standards Initiatives in Hewlett Packard's Office of Strategy and Technology.

These standards are designated as:

• ANSI INCITS 377-2004, American National Standard for Information Technology – Finger Pattern Data Interchange Format

The finger pattern data interchange format standard, ANSI INCITS 377, describes the conversion of a raw fingerprint image to
a cropped and down- sampled finger pattern followed by the cellular representation of the finger pattern image to create the
finger-pattern interchange data.

• ANSI INCITS 378-2004, American National Standard for Information Technology – Finger Minutiae Format for Data
Interchange

The finger minutiae format for data interchange standard, ANSI INCITS 378, defines the placement of the minutiae on a
fingerprint, a record format for containing the minutiae data, and optional extensions for ridge count and core/delta information.

• ANSI INCITS 379-2004, American National Standard for Information Technology - Iris Image Interchange Format

The two alternative image interchange formats specified in ANSI INCITS 379 include a rectilinear image storage format that
may be a raw, uncompressed array of intensity values or a compressed format and a second format based on a polar image
specification. The polar image may also be raw or compressed format.

• ANSI INCITS 381-2004, American National Standard for Information Technology - Finger Image Based Interchange Format

The interchange format for the exchange of image-based fingerprint and palm print recognition data specified in ANSI INCITS
381 defines the content, format, and units of measurement for such information. This standard is intended for those
identification and verification applications that require the use of raw or processed image data containing detailed pixel
information.

• ANSI INCITS 385-2004, American National Standard for Information Technology - Face Recognition Format for Data
Interchange

The photographic properties (environment, subject pose, focus, etc.) specified in ANSI INCITS 385-2004 support relevant
application of this technology including human examination and computer automated face recognition.

These standards can be purchased through the INCITS Web site http://www.incits.org/.

About INCITS
The InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) is the primary U.S. focus of standardization in the
field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) encompassing storage, processing, transfer, display, management, organization, and retrieval of information. As such, INCITS also serves as the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) Technical Advisory Group for ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1. JTC 1 is responsible for International standardization in the field of information technology. INCITS is accredited by ANSI and operates under its rules, designed to ensure that voluntary standards are developed by the consensus of directly and materially affected interests. Contact: INCITS Secretariat, Information Technology Industry Council, 1250 Eye St. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005 (www.incits.org).

About INCITS Technical Committee M1 – Biometrics
INCITS established Technical Committee M1 in November 2001 to ensure a high priority, focused, and comprehensive approach in the United States for the rapid development and approval of formal national and international generic biometric standards. INCITS M1’s work is to develop a portfolio of biometric standards in support of the rapid deployment of significantly better, standards-based security solutions for purposes, such as, homeland defense and the prevention of identity theft as well as other government and commercial applications based on biometric personal authentication. INCITS M1 serves as the U.S. Technical Advisory Group (U.S. TAG) for the international organization ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37 on Biometrics, which was established in June 2002. As the U.S. TAG to SC 37, INCITS M1 is responsible for establishing U.S. positions and contributions to SC 37, as well as representing the U.S. at SC 37 meetings (www.incits.org/tc_home/m1.htm).

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