Zwipe announced that Robert (Bob) Fee will help smartcard OEMs in North America, their integrators, and end-users to leverage the Zwipe biometric card, a contactless smart card credential with on-card fingerprint reading. With the Zwipe card, organizations can have users authenticate themselves directly on the biometric card through something they are, a fingerprint, without having to add biometric readers to their existing smart card readers.

Fee has more than 20 years of domestic and international sales and marketing leadership with technology manufacturers. He was most recently general manager, Americas with LEGIC Identsystems AG, located outside of Chicago. He holds a Smart Card Industry Professional/Government certification from the Smart Card Alliance. He earned a Masters in Business Administration from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

“The Zwipe biometric card already has a pent-up demand among users,” emphasizes Fee. “Eliminating the problems of solely deploying PINs and standard cards, the contactless Zwipe biometric card quickly reads the user’s fingerprint in less than a second. Only then will the card system activate the lock. This is much more secure than simply using a standard smartcard, which verifies only something users carry, the smart card itself. I am looking forward to showing the industry a solution that does not require an existing biometrics infrastructure.”

“We are very pleased to have Bob Fee join Zwipe in this capacity,” adds Kim Humborstad, CEO of Zwipe. “He has a history of bringing new technological solutions to the market in a way that is helpful to OEMs and their marketing and sales channels. We encourage people that need the help of biometrics without having to install a biometrics reader infrastructure to contact Bob at once.”

The on-card fingerprint scanner with 3D capacitive technology resides on the contactless smart card which has universal compatibility with all ISO 14443 readers. The Zwipe biometric card is DESFIRE EV1 and MIFARE Classic compatible. Without having to change out the existing readers, the biometric card provides an easy, low cost way for organizations to provide a biometric upgrade to access control systems using smart card readers or multi-technology readers that also read smart cards.

The biometric card is more secure to use than many other available ID and authentication solutions on the market today. The fingerprint data is captured by the on-card fingerprint scanner and is thereafter encrypted and stored only inside the card. No exchange of data is conducted with external systems. This provides secure template management since the fingerprint never leaves the card. It also eliminates user concerns with privacy issues. The card is unique to the user and only the authorized card holder can activate card communication with the reader. When a positive match occurs, the Zwipe biometric card will activate encrypted communication with the lock or reader in the same way as other ISO 14443 contactless smart cards.

At the ISC West Exposition, Zwipe will be in Booth # 5055.