AAMC’s MCAT Will Feature BIO-key’s Fingerprint Identity Solution
20 April, 2006
category: Biometrics
Students taking the Medical College Admission Test will have to produce a fingerprint to prove they are who they say they are. The BIO-key International fingerprint verification procedure will be used by members of the Association of American Medical Colleges who administer some 70,000 MCAT exams yearly.
BIO-key’s Fingerprint Identification reduces check-in time and assures eligibility and identity throughout the medical school application process
WALL, N.J.– BIO-key International, Inc., a leader in finger-based biometric identification and wireless public safety solutions, announced that after a successful pilot, it has been awarded a $370,000 contract from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for deployment of a fingerprint biometric identity solution to assure the identity of test takers both before and after they take the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT).
The MCAT is a standardized examination that medical schools consider as part of their admission criteria for more than 37,000 applicants annually. Over 70,000 MCAT exams are administered each year. An in-progress upgrade to computer-based testing (CBT) delivery will provide MCAT examinees and medical schools with more test dates each year, faster score results, a more controlled testing environment, and a shorter test day.
The new computerized MCAT will also include BIO-key’s technology to capture an examinee’s fingerprint electronically, rather than on paper as is the current practice. This innovative verification technology will shorten pre-test check-in time and will enhance test administrators’ ability to verify examinees eligible to take the test. As part of this conversion to electronic identification, AAMC wanted to create a strong, permanent binding between a test subject and their test results, assuring that test results could not be misappropriated in the event of identity theft.
AAMC Senior Vice President Robert Jones commented, “BIO-key’s secure fingerprint identification technology has exceptional accuracy, is configurable to meet our changing needs, and gives us the added flexibility to choose from a wide variety of fingerprint readers. We will not only use the biometric technology to improve the security of the MCAT, but also to provide U.S. medical schools with biometric tools to verify the identity of newly arrived students. Using BIO-key’s WEB-key remote identification software, a medical school will require only a browser to verify that the arriving student is the same person who took the MCAT.”
“The AAMC deployment is an example of BIO-key technology applied to a mission critical application to improve the accuracy, speed and convenience for identifying individuals in a production setting. We are pleased to be working with AAMC in securing the entire ‘test to application’ process for medical school admissions with our advanced WEB-key solution,” said Mike DePasquale, BIO-key CEO.
About BIO-key
BIO-key develops and delivers advanced identification solutions and information services to law enforcement departments, public safety agencies, government and private sector customers. BIO-key’s mobile wireless technology provides first responders with critical, reliable, real-time data and images from local, state and national databases. BIO-key’s high-performance, scalable, cost-effective and easy-to-deploy biometric finger identification technology accurately identifies and authenticates users of wireless and enterprise data to improve security, convenience and privacy and to reduce identity theft. Over 2,500 police, fire and emergency services departments in North America use BIO-key solutions, making BIO-key the leading supplier of mobile and wireless solutions for public safety worldwide. (www.bio-key.com)
About AAMC
The Association of American Medical Colleges is a nonprofit association representing all 125 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and 96 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 109,000 faculty members, 67,000 medical students, and 104,000 resident physicians. Additional information about the AAMC and U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org.