Iowa taps Digimarc for driver's license biometrics

The Iowa Transportation Department has awarded Digimarc Corp. a contract to implement facial recognition biometrics to thwart driver's license fraud.

Under the $1.4 million contract, Digimarc of Beaverton, Ore., will help the Iowa Transportation Department implement both "one-to-one" and "one-to-many" facial recognition as part of its driver's license enrollment process.

For renewals, the biometric identification system allows automated one-to-one comparison of a driver's new picture against his or her previous photo in the license database to keep applicants from getting more than one license.

The system checks newly captured photos each night against the full database of driver's license images as another means to catch attempts by one person to get a driver's license under several names.

Alabama, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Oregon and Texas, are using the Digimarc Biometric Identification system, company officials said.