Florida County Gives Viisage $2.7 Million Award

Viisage Technology Inc. has won a $2.7 million contract to provide face recognition technology to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in Florida.

Viisage of Littleton, Mass., will provide the technology to aid investigations and integrate it into an inmate booking system, Viisage announced July 27. Viisage will be responsible for providing equipment for the project, valued at an additional $400,000.

The project will include the design, development and implementation of a scalable system capable of capturing facial images to meet the operational needs of law enforcement agencies throughout Pinellas County as well as in the state of Florida.

The system will provide additional tools to assist law enforcement in identifying suspects and the corrections staff in the sheriff's office in identifying inmates at the time of booking or release.

Pinellas County, which includes the city of St. Petersburg, has information on about 300,000 criminals in its database, said Tom Colatosti, Viisage's president and chief executive officer.

Viisage offers facial recognition technology for law enforcement, motor vehicle and social services, and has contracts in 15 states, he said. The company has about 100 employees and had revenue of $28 million in 2000, Colatosti said.