SAGEM has just been selected by the Federal Investigation Department of Brazil for its unequalled skills in terms of Automatic Palm and Fingerprint Identification. The installation of SAGEM’s biometrics technology fits in with the modernisation program of Brazil’s Federal Investigation technical branches. Thales Communications SA is a partner in this program.

The system conceived by SAGEM will be used throughout all of Brazil and will enable finger and palm prints to be registered "in vivo", along with photographs of people via the lap and desk registration units. It will be possible to speed up the delivery of government papers in the absence of previous criminal convictions and to proceed to an immediate identification of suspect people in criminal investigations.

The existing inked fingerprint database (several million files) will be digitised on the spot via the fast conversion system developed by SAGEM. The biometrics-based system installed in Brazil will allow the processing of more than 5 million fingerprint and 500.000 palm files.

This biometrics data will be stored on the central site located in Brasilia. Secured access to the data will be ensured by the double checking of fingerprints belonging to authorised government officials, first at the point of entry to the site via the SAGEM Morphoaccess™ terminals, and next when access is required to workstations applications via SAGEM Morphosmart™, a biometrics sensor that checks once again that the agent is an authorised user of the system.

Groupe SAGEM is an internationally based high-technology group. The second largest French group in the field of telecommunications, the third European Company in electronics for defence and security and the world leader in fingerprint-based biometrics, SAGEM maintains a presence in more than 20 countries.