The Securex expo this year saw a number of new and interesting products appearing on the security landscape.
One of the new companies exploring the South African market for the first time was Digital Identification Solutions AG.
While Digital Identification Solutions may be new to South Africa, the company has been operational in identity solutions globally for three years. Prior to founding the company, Gerd Schaefer, CEO of the company and his two researchers and developers spent almost two decades in Kodak's digital identity division.
Even though it may be young, Digital Identification Solutions already has a worldwide customer base for its identity solutions. The company has sales, marketing and support centres in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States. Schaefer notes that the company remains small, focusing on producing identity solutions that are ahead of its competitors and dealing with customers through its worldwide network of certified partners.
As to its solutions, Schaefer says only two companies are able to offer a complete digital identity solution to customers. This includes the software to capture and improve biometric images, even those taken in less than perfect conditions. The company's software also enhances the picture to a level where skin tone is irrelevant and accurate identification is guaranteed.
Full solutions
Digital Identification Solutions also provides card printers and the associated software. Card Printers are available in DCP versions (direct-card-printing technology) or in the most advanced XID versions (Re-transfer printing technology).
The company's advantage over its competition is that its range of printers caters for small offices that need a simple desktop card printer, through to high-end solutions that can churn out 800 cards per hour. And, Schaefer notes, its products are offered at affordable prices and are scalable, allowing customers to start small and grow according to their needs.
The flexibility and low price is in part due to the R&D done on this subject by Digital Identification Solutions as well as the decision to outsource its manufacturing. "When manufacturing is your core business, you can do it cheaper and faster than a company entering this field for the first time," Schaefer notes. "We therefore outsource our hardware manufacturing so we can be more flexible and faster to market while focusing on our key competences of software, imaging, drivers and encoding technologies."
For example, the DCP 100 ID Card Entry-Level System includes smart Web camera and tripod, along with Digital Identification Solutions' EDIsecure Card Management Software Standard Edition - available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic and simplified Chinese. The DCP 100 can print one or both sides of a card. The printer has a very small footprint.
At the high end, the EDIsecure XID 590i Re-transfer Card Printer can handle loads of up to 840 single-side colour cards per hour. Users can also add an optional Inline-Overlamination Module (multiple OLMs) with online communication.
Schaefer adds that the company offers easy to use systems to ensure anyone can be trained to use them, plus it provides all the consumables, including ribbons, cards materials, over lamination materials and security features and services to keep the systems running. The available security features include pre-printed, electronically or laminated cards.
Although the company has only been operational for less than four years, it already has over 5000 printers installed, testifying to its success in the market.
South African interest
As noted, the company has not yet set up a partner channel in South Africa, but is keen on examining its opportunities here. The local market is handled by regional manager, V. Gopalakrishnan.
The manner Digital Identification Solutions enters a country is by appointing a certified distributor with the prerequisite skills and support capabilities, which will be supported by additional partner companies.
Even though Digital Identification Solutions is a small company, it has already established itself as a leader in digital identification by signing large organisations such as Deutsche Post, Airbus, Qantas and Pfizer as clients. It has also made inroads into the government markets in the UAE, Asia and EU.
In Indonesia, for example, the company has managed to reduce the time it takes for any citizen to get a passport, after having their identity checked and verified, to three days. In emergencies it can be delivered on the same day. And this is in a country made up of hundreds of disconnected islands where passport fraud is rife - or at least it used to be rife until the Digital Identification Solutions system was installed.
For more information contact Digital Identification Solutions (Dubai), +97 142 045 316, [email protected], www.digital-identification.com
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