The US government has ordered a whole bunch of Tactivo readers for its employees, allowing them to use their security cards to access sensitive information through their mobile devices. The order was placed by the US Department of Defense’s Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), through the company’s partner, TX Systems, and was for 1100 Tactivo readers at a value of about one million Swedish krona.The Tactivo readers employ multi-factor authentication by combining the scanning of smart cards with the security measures enabled by the mobile devices to which they attach. In the case of an Apple iPhone, for example, the card reader would work in conjunction with the phone’s fingerprint scanner to allow for multimodal authentication employing biometric security. It’s an extremely effective way of providing the kind of security that would befit US government data and programs, while still allowing a significant degree of freedom on the part of government employees.
The deal must provide some feeling of validation on the part of those behind the wheel at Precise Biometrics, as it appears to be at least in part a result of some recent savvy business decisions: First, the company decided to focus its efforts on the exploding mobile fingerprint market, and to that end the company followed up with ensuring that its newest products are compatible with the latest Apple mobile devices. This led to products with very clear value to agencies whose staff must have easy access to sensitive data and programs, and there will almost certainly be more customers beyond the US government.
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