NEC Corporation has made an undisclosed investment in Tascent, a US-based biometric system company.
NEC has been developing biometric identification technologies for more than 40 years, and systems using NEC’s Bio-Idiom biometrics have been introduced through more than 700 systems in 70 countries.
Earlier this year, NEC’s iris recognition was named the world’s most accurate by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, which has also recently named NEC’s face recognition and fingerprint recognition technologies as the most accurate.
Tascent, established in 2015, provides multimodal biometric identification systems, with particular emphasis on the iris modality.
Tascent supplies technologies including optical control technology to remotely capture an accurate, iris image at high speed, and a user interface (UI) technology that guides users in support of capturing accurate biometric information — to airports, government agencies and enterprises.
NEC said the investment will enable the two companies to jointly enhance the capacity of iris recognition, using Tascent’s optical control and UI technologies and NEC’s biometric engines and create a next generation iris authentication offering for the public safety market.
NEC aims to expand its social solution business and further boost profitability by acquiring new customers, delivery resources, core technologies and business models, according to Masakazu Yamashina, executive vice president, NEC Corporation.
