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Wednesday April 10, 8:33 am Eastern Time Press Release SOURCE: Visionics Corporation DARPA Extends Visionics Participation in Human ID at a Distance Program Current Year Contract Calls for Nearly $1 Million in Additional Funding MINNETONKA, Minn. & JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 10, 2002--Visionics Corporation (Nasdaq:VSNX - news), the worldwide leader in identification technologies and systems, announced today that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has extended the company's participation in the Human ID at a Distance program through an additional $994,000 in funding to its current year contract. The original contract, signed in August 2000, was for approximately two million dollars for an initial two-year period, with a provision that it may be extended into a second phase, for a similar amount, for an additional two years depending on progress made during the first phase. The increase of more than 40% in the original funding brings the total contract value for the first phase to $3.1 million. The overall goal of the Human ID at a Distance program is to promote significant advancement in the state of the art of identification at a distance by combining different technologies, including facial recognition. In the wake of recent events, Visionics' technology has been identified as a powerful tool for combating and deterring crime. Its FaceItŪ ARGUS system constantly searches video feeds of standard CCTV systems for faces and matches them against a watch list of wanted individuals. It alerts when a match occurs. Non-matches are immediately discarded from the system. FaceItŪ ARGUS is being installed and evaluated at various airports across the country. Previous versions of the system have been in use for some time in the UK and other security installations worldwide. On February 22, 2002, Visionics Corporation announced that it entered into a definitive merger agreement with Identix Incorporated (Nasdaq: IDNX - news) in an all-stock transaction. Visionics and Identix plan to file a joint proxy statement/prospectus with the SEC in connection with the transaction containing important information about each respective company, the transaction and related matters. The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and the approval of Visionics and Identix shareholders, and is currently expected to close in the calendar quarter ending June 30, 2002. About Visionics Corporation Visionics Corporation is the worldwide leader in identification technologies and systems. The Company is uniquely positioned with a comprehensive set of biometric identification product offerings: FaceItŪ, live scan, IBIS and BNP. The award-winning core FaceItŪ technology enables a broad range of products and applications built by partners (OEMs, VARs and system integrators). These include enhanced CCTV systems, identity fraud applications, and identity verification systems for physical and network security, travel and banking. The TENPRINTER, FingerPrinter CMS and Modular live scan systems are the most widely used by government agencies, law enforcement, airports, banks and other commercial institutions in the United States. IBIS is a revolutionary mobile identification system capable of capturing both forensic quality fingerprints and photographs for transmission and wireless transmission of data to law enforcement and other legacy databases for real-time identification. Finally, the BNP is the only commercially available platform for delivering scalable biometric solutions. It incorporates FaceItŪ technology for implementation over large-scale networks and real-time identification. The product offerings are reflective of Visionics' leadership position in the biometric industry and commitment to the innovation of identification technologies. More information on Visionics can be accessed via the Company web site at http://www.visionics.com or by calling Frances Zelazny, Director of Corporate Communications at +1 201-332-9213. This news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected on the basis of such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the ``safe-harbor'' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Among the most significant risks and uncertainties with respect to the merger between Visionics and Identix are obtaining regulatory and shareholder approval, fulfilling the conditions set forth in the Definitive Merger Agreement for the close of the anticipated transaction, and the timing of the closing of the transaction. For a more complete description of the risk factors, which may affect the future performance of Visionics and Identix on an individual basis, see ``Risk Factors'' under the respective companies' annual reports and other periodic SEC filings. |
