Formation of the United Kingdom Biometrics Institute

Prominent figures from the biometrics research and technologies sectors met at the University of Kent’s Canterbury campus on Monday 2 April to celebrate the formation of the United Kingdom Biometrics Institute (UKBI).

Initiated by the University’s Department of Electronics, and supported by Kent Enterprise, UKBI will aim to: enhance the productive exchange of knowledge and expertise in the UK across all stakeholders, including the University’s researchers, the biometrics industrial sector and potential end-users; and to provide leading-edge solutions to emerging and future market needs.

There are increasing opportunities for successfully deploying biometrics technologies, not just in current high profile applications such as the National ID Card Programme, but in the financial sector, in healthcare, in securing documents and, indeed, in any situation where a high degree of confidence in individual identity is important.

Professor Michael Fairhurst, Head of the Department of Electronics at Kent, said: ‘The rapidly developing field of biometrics is providing both opportunities and challenges to the academic research community, to government, and to UK industry. The formation of UKBI is a major step forward in giving this area of technology – which is now a worldwide enterprise – its own UK voice, helping to keep the UK at the forefront of developments.’

Carole Barron, Director of Kent Enterprise, said: ‘UKBI will enable the UK to become a leading international player in the application of biometric technology. It will provide the stimulus required to pioneer innovative ways of generating major national economic benefits and create a unique collective resource of data, knowledge and information to underpin scientific research and commercial research and development in the field of biometrics.’

UKBI will work closely with organisations such as the International Association for Biometrics (iAfB) and the European Biometrics Forum (EBF) to form and develop partnerships for future innovation and development. The iAfB and EBF are strategic partners in UKBI.