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Standards Development

To ensure the development of commercial biometric standards that meet Department of Defense (DoD) requirements, the Biometrics Identity Management Agency (BIMA) participates in national and international biometric standards development bodies. Within these bodies, the BIMA advocates DoD interests and influences the development of biometric standards by participating in every step of the process. The BIMA provides editorship, technical contributions and leadership in the ad-hoc and special working groups for many standards development projects. At the national and international levels, the BIMA coordinates DoD and U.S. government partner positions so as to present unified positions on standards development projects. Throughout each step of these development processes, the BIMA continually reports progress and outcomes of standards bodies to the DoD community.

The BIMA participates in the following standards development bodies.

  • Technical Committee on Biometrics (M1) of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS)
    • M 1.1 – Plenary
    • M 1.2 – Biometric Technical Interface
    • M 1.3 – Biometric Data Interchange Formats
    • M 1.5 – Biometric Performance Testing and Reporting
    • M 1.6 – Cross-Jurisdictional and Societal Aspects of Biometric Implementations
  • Subcommittee 37 (SC 37) of the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
    • WG 1 – Harmonized biometric vocabulary
    • WG 2 – Biometric Technical Interfaces
    • WG 3 – Biometric Data Interchange Formats
    • WG 4 – Biometric Functional Architecture and Related Profiles
    • WG 5 – Biometric Performance Testing and Reporting
    • WG 6 – Cross-Jurisdictional and Societal Aspects of Biometric Implementations
  • The BIMA serves as the SC 37 Liaison to SC 27 on Security Techniques
  • Biometric Identity Assurance Services (BIAS) Technical Committee of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)
  • Workshop for developing the ANSI/NIST ITL 1-200x standards, sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
  • The BIMA serves as editor of the DoD Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification (EBTS) and is responsible for the DoD EBTS change control

BIMA Biometric Standards Approach and Activities

BIMA Biometric Standards Approach and Activities