The FBI says its new biometric matching system has achieved initial operating capability (IOC), offering state, local and federal law enforcement agencies faster and more accurate automated fingerprint matching capabilities than the legacy system based on fingerprints already on record.

The Next Generation Identification (NGI) system has been providing fingerprint matching accuracy rates of 99.6 percent versus 92 percent for the legacy Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), John Traxler, the FBI’s NGI program manager, tells TR2.

“NGI represents a quantum leap in fingerprint identification that will help us in solving investigations, preventing crime, and apprehending criminals and terrorists,” says Daniel Roberts, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

Lockheed Martin [LMT] is designing and implementing NGI. The new fingerprint matching technology, called Automated Fingerprint Identification Technology (AFIT), is supplied by Morpho Trak under subcontract to Lockheed Martin. Morpho Trak is a business of France’s Safran Group.

The AFIT capability represents Increment 1 of the NGI program. The program remains on schedule as IOC was achieved five weeks ahead of plan, Traxler says.

The first increment in the program was actually Increment 0, which was achieved nearly a year ago, and consisted of deliveries of 800 new Advanced Technology Workstations (TR2, Jan. 20, 2010). The new workstations feature larger display screens and higher resolution to better present biometric data, allowing analysts to make faster decisions.

This fall Lockheed Martin is expected to deliver the next fully operational program increment, Traxler says. Increment 2 will consist of some additional infrastructure to support more biometric modalities as part of future increments to NGI as well as a subset of the database, the Repository of Individuals of Special Concern (RISC), which the FBI says contains the “worst of the worst.”

RISC is currently being pilot tested with agencies in five states and consists of records of known and suspected terrorists, sexual predators and others, to enable rapid turnaround of biometric matching requests. Once RISC is fully operational it will be available to law enforcement agencies throughout the country that choose to use it, Traxler says.

Increment 3 will expand NGI to include latent palm prints. IAFIS already includes latent fingerprint matching capabilities but the upgrade to NGI will increase the speed and accuracy as well as enable more queries. This phase is in the middle of the design phase, Traxler says

Morpho Trak has also been selected to provide the latent matching algorithms for Increment 3, he says.

The fourth increment is a facial recognition capability as well as Rap Back function. Lockheed Martin has already completed a trade study of various vendors for the facial recognition capability and a decision is close on a vendor, Traxler says. The Department of State

The Rap Back function is an internal process that will allow for government agencies who participate to know if an employee that went through a previous background check has since been arrested.

For Increment 5 Lockheed Martin is just beginning a trade study for iris matching capabilities. A pilot project is underway and the FBI will later choose if this is a capability it wants to move forward with, Traxler says.

The final increment occurs in the seventh year of the 10 year program. Increment 6 is essentially ensuring that technology that has been delivered in the first years of the program is up to date to make sure that once NGI achieves full operating capability in 2014 with the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division that they don’t have to worry about technology refresh in the first year of full operations, Traxler says.

The final three years of the contract with Lockheed Martin are for operations and maintenance. The company won the potential $1 billion NGI contract in 2008.

Lockheed Martin originally developed IAFIS for the FBI.

Traxler says the ongoing Continuing Resolution being used to fund the federal government in FY ’11 hasn’t affected NGI. Funding for the program remains secure, he says.