Jakarta. Indonesian biometrics developer Akurat Satu secures a sweet spot in the top 25 for facial recognition in wild images, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, the physical sciences laboratory under the United States Department of Commerce. 

The NIST has recently announced the rankings for the developer with the most accurate and fastest algorithms. Akurat Satu enters the top 25 in the wild photos false non-match rate @FMR ≤ 0.00001 category, which tests facial recognition in randomized images.

The result shows Akurat Satu's accuracy in face detection in various field conditions and scenarios, including ethnicities, gender, and age. Such dataset testing is useful for border control, airport security, forensic, electronic know-your-customer (e-KYC), and urban safety.

Also, NIST named Akurat Satu to be the 26th best in facial recognition for border photos used for inspecting and verifying a traveler's identity at the borders. They are also at the 33rd place for visa photo facial recognition.

"Our biometrics system and technology have been around since 2011 and are used by various state institutions, law enforcement, and companies," Akurat Satu's director Christian Kurniawan said in his official statement on Friday.

Among its clients are the National Anti-Narcotics Agency (BNN), the National Police (Polri), and the National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT).

Christian said Akurat Satu first applied to the NIST to get internationally certified and later competed with more than 150 reputable AI and biometric companies worldwide. That was also quite the achievement because only a few Indonesian companies have made the cut in NIST's rankings.

NIST certification will also make Asli RI and VeriJelas — Akurat Satu's affiliation and its largest biometric service user — better at helping other companies combat the spiraling cybercrime.

"Hopefully, in the future, there are more people that find biometrics technology useful. With this, we can suppress cybercrime or even get rid of it completely," Christian said.