Acuant, a leading provider of data capture and authentication solutions, announced that it has acquired Ozone®, a line of identity products, intellectual property (IP) and talent from Mount Airey Group, a premier provider of identity solutions used by federal organizations and agencies around the world. According to ICAO there are approximately 100 Nations/States currently issuing ePassports, and over 490 million ePassports are in circulation.
This transaction follows a highly successful partnership between Acuant and Mount Airey Group, which integrated Acuant’s AssureID with Mount Airey Group’s Ozone e-Passport Authentication technology to create the industry’s most comprehensive e-authentication solution for border control, featuring certificate chain validation for passports and country-specific policy controls.
Bill Russell, Chief Technology Officer for Mount Airey Group stated, “we are excited to bring these two world-class product sets together. They provide powerful state-of-the-art security checks with rapid identity authentication. In today’s world, this full range of identity document verification is a must-have for our customers.”
Ozone, which allows application owners to PK-enable their applications without the need to understand the mechanics of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), supports enterprise-scale identity and access management (IDAM) solutions, including ePassport analysis, ICAO Public Key Directory (PKD) and validation capabilities, and atomic authorization capabilities incorporated within cloud and mobility solutions. ePassports add a layer of security to traditional non‑electronic passports by embedding an electronic chip in the passport.
“The addition of Ozone into our expanding line of identity solutions strengthens our chip and PKI offering to provide industry leading security,” said Yossi Zekri, CEO, Acuant. “These expanded capabilities will have a significant impact on both government and commercial markets relative to identity verification and authentication trends.”