Labcal Technologies Inc., a Canadian company specializing in fingerprint-based biometrics, smart card and public key cryptography solutions for identification and authentication, announces that CATSA has selected its handheld rugged biometric reader to authenticate employees in every tier 1 and tier 2 Canadian airport. The selection was made by CATSA through a competitive tendering process in which all qualifying bids submitted were subjected to in depth technical evaluations conducted by two (2) independent third parties.

Ahearn & Soper, the reseller of Labcal's Be.U Mobile selected by CATSA, has been awarded a standing offer for the continuity of the deployment. Units have already been delivered and many have been deployed and are in use across Canada. The rugged device allows mobile authentication of an individual's RAIC (restricted area identification card) using HID's iCLASS contactless card technology and Bioscrypt's fingerprint verification algorithm. CATSA's RAIC is similar to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security program called Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC).

"After understanding CATSA's needs and wishes, and following evaluations of other devices available in the market, it seemed obvious to Ahearn & Soper that the Be.U Mobile by Labcal was the perfect reader to recommend," Says Miller Houston, Vice-President of Sales at Ahearn & Soper. "We are proud to partner with Labcal on this project and we look forward to future collaborations on upcoming authentication and identification projects."

"Being selected by CATSA for the authentication of the RAIC shows once again that the Be.U Mobile SMC-800 series is becoming more and more recognized as a worldwide leader in handheld biometric authentication and identification readers. It simply fulfills every market need." Says Pierre Root, President and CEO of Labcal.