The FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) program has won a major award from the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). At its 15th Annual Excellence.Gov Awards, the government IT organization recognized NGI in the Excellence in Intergovernmental Collaboration category.
The NGI program’s overall purposes was to replace the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), and in so doing the system went live toward the end of last year. Its biometric identification capabilities are used not only by the FBI but by law enforcement agencies at various levels, among other government personnel.
In a statement, ACT-IAC cited the NGI program’s improved accuracy, at 99.6 percent against the IAFIS’s 92 percent. ACT-IAX also lauded NGI’s automatization of previously labor-intensive processes, asserting that with its reduction of the FBI’s need to perform supplemental name checks and the like, it has led to a 90 percent decrease in manual fingerprint reviews.
The Next Generation Identification System was designed by Lockheed Martin in collaboration with IBM and is the product of many years of effort. While it has been the subject of some controversy in the media, the NGI is clearly valued by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies for its efficient and accurate identification capabilities, and it has proven effective in helping to resolve investigations.
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November 10, 2015 – by Alex Perala
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