Wireless scanners that can pick out 'the bad guy'

Intellicheck Mobilisa Inc. makes ID card scanners that resemble vintage "Star Trek" phasers -- though you can't set the devices to stun.

The company, formed in 2007 by the merger of Woodbury-based Intellicheck and Mobilisa Inc. of Port Townsend, Wash., first helps its clients establish one fact: You are who you say you are.

Then it checks to see if you're a "bad guy."

Its scanners help seaport and military base guards decide whether to let you in. And, company officials hope, someday the scanners may help Homeland Security agents determine whether you're safe to fly.

"We're currently doing 6 million scans a day, and we scan up to 140 databases, wirelessly, in a few seconds," said chief operating officer Steve Williams, who is based in Alexandria, Va.

More and more, the company is seeking big government contracts. Intellicheck has provided the Transportation Security Agency with two demo Defense ID scanners for evaluation, Williams said. A TSA spokeswoman said information on Intellicheck's scanner was not immediately available.

Though it reported a $573,000 loss in 2009, revenue increased 24 percent over 2008, to $12.4 million from $10 million.

It is pinning its expansion strategy on seaport and airport security. Intellicheck wants to expand on a recent ID-check contract for the Port Authority by selling the same Transportation Worker Identity Credential scanner to the nation's remaining 150-plus seaports.

The scanners can be set to access warrants, driver records, credit history, iris patterns, the FBI's 4,000-name no-fly list or the government's 550,000-name terrorism database.

The devices also allow you to apply for a credit card at in-store kiosks, using the bar code on the back of driver's licenses.

About half of Intellicheck's 50-person workforce is based in Washington state, and the other half is in Woodbury, where the company said it plans to add 10 jobs and lease more office space.

Intellicheck was thrust into the spotlight last December after both Williams and the company's chief executive, Nelson Ludlow, said their ID scanner system could have stopped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight near Detroit on Christmas Day.

If the company's technology had been in place, and if federal law let TSA agents use the 550,000-name database - where Abdulmutallab's name did appear - then he would have been red-flagged in Amsterdam before boarding the Detroit flight, company officials said. Abdulmutallab was not on the 4,000-name list.

Intellicheck officials' remarks in December regarding the Detroit incident tripled the company's stock price to nearly $5 a share in a few days. Shares closed down 4 cents to $2.12 Monday.

Retail, military applications

The company sells to Toys R Us and Target, supplying driver's license scanners for in-store credit card application kiosks. It also sells age-verification scanners to casinos, liquor stores, cigarette retailers and nightclubs.

All four branches of the U.S. military have preapproved Intellicheck as a provider of gate-entry scanners, and more than 70 bases have bought Intellicheck's system at an average cost of $250,000 per base, the company said. Base clients include the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Screening tool at airports

Defense ID can't make the airways safe on its own, company officials said, but it could complement existing tactics such as bomb-sniffing dogs and behavioral analysis, they added.

Intellicheck is lobbying for changes at the TSA and hopes the agency's screeners will be able to search numerous law enforcement databases. TSA's use of the more expansive 550,000-name list would require a change in federal law.

Some air travel security experts said they doubted Intellicheck's equipment would make air travel safer, or that it might have stopped Abdulmutallab.

"I don't think there is a need for such a device," Douglas Laird, a Colorado air travel security analyst, said. "The TSA can better spend their money elsewhere in my opinion."

Intellicheck counters that there is popular support for tougher screening and that its scanners could help the TSA identify suspicious travelers.

"At least it can send up a red flag saying, 'This guy needs some additional screening,' " Williams said.

About Intellicheck Mobilisa Inc.

Chief executive: Nelson Ludlow, right, 48, founded Mobilisa Inc. in Washington state in 2001 and focused on the U.S.driver's license ID check-age verification market. He is a former Air Force pilot and mathematician who has a doctorate in artificial intelligence - computer simulation of human intelligence - from Scotland's Edinburgh University.

Company background: In 2007, Mobilisa bought the Woodbury ID-verification software company Intellicheck Inc., founded in 1994. The company has about 50 employees, half of whom are basedin Woodbury. The company said it plans to add 10 moreworkers and lease additional office space on Long Island. It trades as IDN on the American Stock Exchange

- Joseph Mallia