NEC launches 'NEC Biometrics Excellence Center'

NEC India has launched its first 'NEC Biometrics Excellence Center' (N-BEC)
in Bangalore. The excellence center will provide world class engineering
competency to cater to the company's global chain engaged in development,
deployment and support of identity solutions for the international market. The
center is also aimed at accelerating the expansion of NEC's global multimodal
identification solutions and integrated security solutions business, including
its renowned automated fingerprint identification solutions and face recognition
solutions. NEC has been developing fingerprint matching technologies for more
than three decades and its technological superiority in biometrics
identification has been proven by several accuracy tests conducted by the
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S.2.

Commenting on the occasion, Koji Oda, MD, NEC India said, "The public safety
market in India has huge potential and the setting up of this biometric centre,
is indicative of our commitment to the India market. We foresee greater adoption
of biometric solutions in India, particularly in civic amenities and various
social schemes."

"The setup of this NEC Biometrics Excellence Center is to showcase NEC's
capabilities in the biometrics field, and by capitalizing on all our resources
and engineering, geographic and technological expertise in this area, we will be
able to strengthen our core competencies and bring our biometrics technologies
to greater heights," stated Takaya Kobayashi, GM-Government and Public Global
Solutions Division, NEC Corporation.

The center initially employs around 50 people and will ramp-up its operations
to meet the market demands in future. NEC will capitalize on its central
competencies in engineering, geographic and technological expertise to drive the
development of N-BEC.

"We are well positioned to target this segment because of our long standing
leadership in biometrics and our experience in showcasing our capabilities in
this field. Setting up N-BEC enables us to play an important role in reforming
identity lifecycle and bringing about reforms at every level from education,
land records, hospitals to being a part of social schemes rolled out by the
Government," said, Kris Ranganath, CTO, Government and Public Global Solutions
Division, NEC Corporation.

NEC's biometrics solutions have been utilized in more than 200 applications
by over 30 countries throughout the world, including law enforcement and border
control agencies, as well as in civil identification and national election
systems that require large-scale, highly accurate and rapid data processing.