Aware and Anonybit Pave the Way for Privacy-Preserving Identity Management Solutions

Partnership Between the Companies Will Address Biometric Data Security Concerns and Enable Users to Secure Their Biometric Template

BEDFORD, MASS. – Feb. 22, 2022 – Aware, Inc., (NASDAQ: AWRE), a leading global provider of biometrics software products, solutions and services, and Anonybit, a pioneer in decentralized biometrics, today announced a partnership whereby the two companies will collaborate to bring highly secure, privatized biometric templates to customers and their users. The collaboration will address the biometric data security concerns prevalent in the market today, particularly with government customers.

“Anonybit tackles a key issue for biometric implementations – how to secure the biometric template,” says Dr. Mohamed Lazzouni, chief technology officer at Aware. “In an age of privacy first, their approach promises to address the need for greater data protection and frictionless identity assurance. We are delighted to be partnering with them to deliver privacy-preserving identity management solutions to the market.”

Biometrics refer to data pertaining to an individual’s unique physical characteristics – face morphology, voice and fingerprints, for example. It is a highly reliable and convenient form of user authentication which overcomes the shortcomings of passwords, which can be lost, stolen or cumbersome. A biometric template is the initial collection of biometric data against which future authentication attempts are compared. As the number of data breaches continue to rise, there are concerns that biometric templates stolen or accessed in such a breach could open the door for that template to be used to bypass additional biometric security measures.

By combining Aware’s best-in-class biometric technology and Anonybit’s approach to storing data throughout a vast peer-to-peer network in the form of anonymized bits, the partnership will enable customers to enjoy all the benefits of the latest in biometric technology, while giving users confidence that their individual biometric data cannot be stolen or compromised. Specifically, the combined offering will enable privacy-preserving biometric deployments across a wide range of use cases—like passwordless authentication, access control, time and attendance, and visitor management.

“As data breaches continue to rise in volume and severity around the globe, and biometrics become more ubiquitous in  our daily lives, it’s incumbent upon all of us to address overwhelming concerns around how our identity information is being stored and managed,” says Frances Zelazny, co-founder and chief executive officer at Anonybit. “We are excited to partner with Aware to develop industry-leading solutions that will protect highly sensitive biometric templates and, in turn, our users’ privacy.”

About Aware

Aware (Nasdaq: AWRE) is a biometric leader trusted around the world to provide biometric software solutions and services that enable customers to grow with frictionless mobile biometric identity management. From enrollment to identification, authentication and lifecycle management, Aware is empowering customers to embrace biometrics and end users to own their identities in a more mobile, remote, operational and touchless world. Its market-leading liveness detection and multi-modal biometric fusion improve security through fingerprint, face, iris and voice matching algorithms, mobile biometric capture and authentication software, biometric workflows and middleware, and a full scale ABIS. Aware serves customers across a multitude of industries, including financial services, enterprise security, healthcare, human resources, citizen ID, border management, law enforcement, defense and intelligence. To learn more, visit https://www.aware.com or follow Aware on Twitter @AwareBiometrics.

About Anonybit

Anonybit is the first fully decentralized biometrics infrastructure used by embedded partners and enterprises to deliver privacy-by-design solutions to market. Supporting all biometric modalities and multiple use cases in the identity management lifecycle, Anonybit easily integrates into existing workflows. For more information, visit anonybit.io

Safe Harbor Warning

Portions of this release contain forward-looking statements regarding future events and are subject to risks and uncertainties, such as our expectations regarding our new product. Aware wishes to caution you that there are factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results indicated by such statements, including the risks that (i) a significant commercial market for biometrics technology may not develop, and if it does, we may not be successful in that market (ii) we derive a significant portion of our revenue from third party channel partners, (iii)  the biometrics market may not experience significant growth or our products may not achieve broad acceptance;  iv) we face intense competition from other biometrics solution providers; (v) current and prospective customers do not purchase our new product in the quantities that we expect and (vi) our new product does not perform as well as we expect because of errors, defects or bugs. We refer you to the documents Aware files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, specifically the section titled Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 and other reports and filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Aware is a registered trademark of Aware, Inc.

Company Contact                            

Gina Rodrigues
Aware, Inc.
781-687-0300
grodrigues@aware.com