Accenture [ACN] and Sagem Defense Securite won a contract to develop the European Commission’s Biometric Matching System (BMS) which will store fingerprints of up to 70 million people and process more than 100,000 verification and identification requests per day. The BMS is the central biometric component of a collection of European Union identity programs for the protection of citizens and Schengen borders, which currently cover 29 European countries that have agreed to Schengen rules that are designed to eliminate physical borders among European countries. As the lead partners in the Bridge Consortium, Accenture has overall program management responsibilities and Sagem, which is part of France’s SAFRAN Group, will provide the biometric matching software. Other team members include Bull, Uniqkey and Daon. The system will be used to check whether a visa applicant has submitted applications under a different name and will be available at border crossings to verify the identity of visa holders and the authenticity of their visas.
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