Federal Workers on Capitol Hill Get Biometric Security, Care of BIO-key

“In this environment, any device could contain confidential information that might be considered harmful if it were to get into the wrong hands and potentially put our country at great risk.” – Mike DePasquale, CEO, BIO-key

BIO-key‘s biometric authentication solutions are now helping to secure the digital assets of employees in the legislative branch of government, the company has announced.

More specifically, the company “is working within the legislative branch of the Federal Government to provide a layer of biometric authentication to secure their devices,” according to CEO Mike DePasquale. BIO-key’s EcoID fingerprint readers, which can be plugged into the USB port of a computer, have been deployed to help secure the federal workers’ Windows devices, with users able to gain access to digital assets through a fingerprint scan rather than a potentially insecure password.

Such security is a matter of increasing concern on Capital Hill. “In this environment, any device could contain confidential information that might be considered harmful if it were to get into the wrong hands and potentially put our country at great risk,” explained DePasquale. “EcoID helps ensure that the person signing-on to the device is the appropriate individual.”

BIO-key’s announcement comes just a few weeks after the news that its biometric technology had been embraced by another two County Election Boards in Florida, suggesting that BIO-key is enjoying rising prominence in the government sector.

It also comes in the wake of a Private Industry Notice from the FBI urging its partners in the private sector to embrace digital security systems that feature biometrics or behavioral data. The FBI said that it had encountered numerous reports of multi-factor authentication systems being hacked, and warned that while such systems are better than password-based security, they are most effective when incorporating more sophisticated mechanisms such as biometric authentication.

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October 22, 2019 – by Alex Perala