BEDFORD, Mass., July 20, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Aware, Inc. (Nasdaq: AWRE), a global provider of imaging and biometrics software, today announced that it has supplied client- and server-based software products for the "PIV" employee credentialing system of a large U.S. federal government agency. The software is part of a solution deployed by ICF International subsidiary Jacob & Sundstrom, an IT services firm with deep PIV expertise and experience. The system is used to provide enterprise-wide enrollment of federal employees and centralized data structuring and workflow for issuance of PIV credentials.

Aware's Universal Registration Client (URC) is a software application used to perform assisted enrollment of biographic data, facial images, fingerprints, identity documents, and digital written signatures. In the agency system, this enrollment data is forwarded to Aware's Biometric Services Platform (BioSP^™), a SOA application server used to aggregate, store, process, and disseminate the enrolled data for various purposes, including background checks and PIV card personalization. Together, URC and BioSP provide a platform of GSA-approved software components that fulfill the biometric functionality requirements of their PIV system. The Aware system provides ICF International a framework for customization and quick deployment.

"Aware offers a broad biometric software platform that utilizes highly modular building blocks of biometric functionality," commented David Simonetti, vice president for ICF International. "As a focused system integrator, this model suited our needs ideally because we needed GSA-approved biometrics software that fulfilled PIV mandates and yet could be quickly customized and deployed in a way that accommodated our customer's legacy systems and specific workflow requirements. The Aware solution also addresses capture hardware obsolescence risks that can impact system maintenance costs going forward, a key factor for us."

URC is a biometric enrollment application that is first used to search the agency's identity management system (IDMS) for pre-enrolled biographic data records. It utilizes Aware's biometric SDKs to perform autocapture of facial images and fingerprints and amend these records with the images and fingerprint minutiae templates along with "I9" identity document scans and digital written signatures. These biometric SDKs also enable the URC application to be used equivalently with a wide variety of market-leading biometric capture hardware devices without affecting the operation or performance of the application.

BioSP provides configuration and deployment management of the URC enrollment application, and offers PIV card-based password access control to the application. Upon completion of an enrollment, URC submits the enrollment data record with images, data, and fingerprint templates securely to BioSP, which -- via programmable workflow -- performs a host of data processing tasks as required by the system. BioSP stores the image data and integrates with agency's IDMS to associate biometric data with identities stored there. It also forwards PIV-compliant fingerprint template objects to the IDMS for card personalization. BioSP also creates fingerprint transactions for background checks and submits these to OPM.

Aware's software products are valuable to system integrators because they provide advanced biometric image and data processing functionality in highly modular, easy to use components. They can also be used to extend the lifetime and reduce the ongoing maintenance costs of a biometric hardware/software solution, because they are kept synchronized with evolving technology standards, and also with new hardware devices as they become available, including fingerprint live scan devices, digital cameras, and flatbed scanners. Aware software components are FIPS 201-compliant and GSA-approved for face and fingerprint enrollment, fingerprint template generation and matching, and PIV card reading and writing.

About Aware

Aware is a leading technology and supplier for the telecommunications and biometrics industries. Aware has pioneered innovations at telecommunications standards-setting organizations for DSL and networking. Telecom equipment vendors and phone companies use Aware's DSL test and diagnostics modules and Dr. DSL^® software to provision and troubleshoot DSL circuits globally. Aware is also a veteran of the biometrics industry, providing biometric and imaging software components used in government systems worldwide since 1992. Aware's interoperable, standard-compliant, field-proven imaging products are used in a number of applications, from border management to criminal justice to medical imaging. Aware is a publicly held company (Nasdaq: AWRE) based in Bedford, Massachusetts. www.aware.com

Safe Harbor Warning

Portions of this release contain forward-looking statements regarding future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties, such as estimates or projections of future revenue and earnings and the growth of the biometrics markets. Aware wishes to caution you that there are factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results indicated by such statements. Biometric factors include, but are not limited to: market acceptance of our biometric technologies and products; changes in contracting practices of government or law enforcement agencies; the failure of the biometrics market to experience continued growth; announcements or introductions of new technologies or products by our competitors; failures or problems in our biometric software products; delays in the adoption of new industry biometric standards; growth of proprietary biometric systems which do not conform to industry standards; our ability to sell services contracts in a manner that is consistent with our business model; our ability to deliver service contract milestones; and our dependence on third party contractors and consultants to deliver certain services contract milestones. We refer you to the documents Aware files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the section titled Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009 and other reports and filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Aware, BioSP, and Dr. DSL are trademarks or registered trademarks of Aware, Inc. Any other trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link.

David Benini

https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=38862

SOURCE Aware, Inc.