VISGE Viisage Technology (MM)

Extended Relationship with Frontier Guard of Finland Helps Secure Ports of Entry to the Country Viisage (NASDAQ:VISGE), a leading provider of advanced technology identity solutions, today announced that the Frontier Guard of Finland, a division of the Ministry of the Interior, has placed an additional order with Viisage to extend its identity solution at the country's major entry and exit points, including land crossings, airports and seaports. In 2002, the Frontier Guard of Finland made its initial purchase of the Viisage iA-thenticate solution for authenticating identity documents. With this new order, the solution has been extended to include over 100 units at points of entry/exit throughout Finland. Among other responsibilities, the Frontier Guard of Finland is accountable for guarding the land borders and territorial waters of Finland, and passport control at border crossing points, airports and sea ports. In order to effectively secure each of these points of entry, the Frontier Guard of Finland must validate the identity documents that are presented by citizens and visitors and for this purpose, chose the enhanced capabilities of Viisage iA-thenticate to embark on a phased replacement of the older readers in place. Since the initial implementation in 2002, the Viisage solution has helped with border control and the document inspection process by providing consistent and accurate verification of documents and automatic inspection of the document's data. Finland has also integrated Viisage iA-thenticate units into their national border control system. "We have extended our document authentication solution in Finland based on the success we have experienced with the solution since 2002," said Mr. Pasi Nokelainen, Planner for the Frontier Border Guard of Finland Headquarters. "The solution provides us with an accurate document validation process, which improves national security without comprising the flow of traffic through our borders that is critical to commerce." Viisage iA-thenticate automatically authenticates passports, visas, and other standard identity documents, by extracting features from the documents using multiple light sources including visible, infrared and ultraviolet. The Viisage iA-thenticate software checks for hidden security features and tampering, while capturing an image of the identity document. The core technology accepts varied inputs including biometrics, OCR, magnetic stripe, bar codes, images, and smart chip inputs. "Helping countries like Finland secure their borders is among our top objectives. The Finland Frontier Border Guard has demonstrated leadership in the international community by implementing an advanced identity document authentication solution," said Bernard Bailey, president and CEO of Viisage. "This thriving relationship is a testament to our commitment to making our customers successful and we look forward to a continued partnership with Finland." About Viisage Viisage (NASDAQ: VISGE) delivers advanced technology identity solutions for governments, law enforcement agencies and businesses concerned with enhancing security, reducing identity theft, and protecting personal privacy. Viisage solutions include secure credentials such as passports and drivers' licenses, biometric technologies for uniquely linking individuals to those credentials, and credential authentication technologies to ensure the documents are valid before individuals are allowed to cross borders, gain access to finances, or granted other privileges. With over 3,000 installations worldwide, Viisage's identity solutions stand out as a result of the Company's industry-leading technology and unique understanding of customer needs. Viisage's product suite includes FaceTOOLS SDK, Viisage PROOF, FaceEXPLORER, iA-thenticate, BorderGuard, FacePASS and FaceFINDER. This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this document and those made from time to time by Viisage through its senior management are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to the future events or financial performance discussed in this release, based on management's beliefs and assumptions and information currently available. When used, the words "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "project", "should", "expect", "plan", "assume" and similar expressions that do not relate solely to historical matters identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements concerning future plans or results are necessarily only estimates and actual results could differ materially from expectations. Certain factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, among other things, the size and timing of contract awards, performance on contracts, availability and cost of key components, unanticipated results from audits of the financial results of the Company and acquired companies, changing interpretations of generally accepted accounting principles, outcomes of government reviews, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, dependence on large contracts and a limited number of customers, lengthy sales and implementation cycles, market acceptance of new or enhanced products and services, proprietary technology and changing competitive conditions, system performance, management of growth, dependence on key personnel, ability to obtain project financing, general economic and political conditions and other factors affecting spending by customers, the unpredictable nature of working with government agencies and other risks, uncertainties and factors including those described from time to time in Viisage's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation, Viisage's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2003 and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Viisage expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.