Face Biometrics Specialist Cognitec Acquired by SALTO Systems

“[SALTO’s] expanding footprint offers us an incredible opportunity to reach the fastest-growing markets in face recognition and at the same time, expand our established business with our mature face recognition products.” – Alfredo Herrera, CEO, Cognitec

Seeking to expand into biometric access control, Spain’s SALTO Systems has announced its acquisition of Cognitec, a face biometrics specialist headquartered in Germany.

Founded in 2001, SALTO is known for its development of innovative digital approaches to access control, with products including its XS4 door locks supporting contactless mobile access, and its Wave XS touchless door opening buttons. The company has 40 global offices and 28 subsidiaries, and says that it has seen over 40,000 deployments around the world, with 40,000,000 daily end users of its access control solutions.

Cognitec, meanwhile, specializes in face biometrics. In testing performed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last autumn, Cognitec’s flagship FaceVACS algorithm ranked 24 of 165 in matching 12 million mugshot images, with an accuracy rate of 98.5 percent. On a dataset of 1.6 million mugshots, it ranked 26 of 299 algorithms, with a match rate of 99.4 percent.

Cognitec was founded the year after SALTO, and has since built up a client network including law enforcement agencies, border authorities, government entities, and commercial organizations. SALTO also has business operations in the public and military sector, and through its acquisition will be able to extend the reach of Cognitec’s biometric technology to the additional areas of healthcare, hospitality, secondary education, and airports.

“Working with Cognitec gives SALTO the opportunity to integrate emerging biometrics, face recognition, and artificial intelligence technologies into our Group products and platforms to create new solutions and services that benefit all of our clients,” explained SALTO Systems Chief Technology Innovation Officer Marc Handels. “Cognitec’s technology is highly compatible and integrable across the SALTO product portfolio of access control, smart lockers, and booking and ticketing solutions.”

Handels added that Cognitec’s biometric technology will allow SALTO to incorporate frictionless access and improve the customer experience across a range of its business areas.

For Cognitec’s part, CEO Alfredo Herrera suggested highlighted SALTO’s global stature. “Their expanding footprint offers us an incredible opportunity to reach the fastest-growing markets in face recognition and at the same time, expand our established business with our mature face recognition products,” he said.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Sources: Security Systems News, SecurityInfoWatch.com, CrunchBase

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Mar. 9, 2022 – by Alex Perala