Biometrics Firm ROC Tops NIST Benchmark
Identity security firm ROC earned the #1 global ranking in the latest NIST evaluation for latent fingerprint technology. The benchmark measures the ability to accurately match low-quality, partial fingerprints from crime scenes, a critical capability for defense and law enforcement.
The NIST ELFT (Evaluation of Latent Fingerprint Technologies) is a benchmark that assesses the accuracy of matching latent fingerprints, which are often partial or poor-quality prints left at crime scenes. This evaluation is critical for law enforcement and forensic applications, and top performers on this benchmark are typically key players in the government and defense sectors. Competitors in this space include companies like Idemia and Thales. ROC, formerly Rank One Computing, was founded in 2015 and is a U.S.-based provider of multimodal biometric and computer vision solutions. The company's founders, Brendan Klare and Joshua Klontz, have a background in supporting the FBI with facial recognition technology, including during the investigation of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. ROC's leadership team includes CEO B. Scott Swann and has deep roots in the U.S. national security community, with many members having served in the FBI, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security. The global automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) market was valued at $9.72 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $56.02 billion by 2034, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.14%. This growth is driven by increasing security concerns and government investment in advanced identification technologies. The broader fingerprint biometrics market is also expanding, expected to reach nearly $94.5 billion by 2034. In February 2026, ROC went public on the Nasdaq (ticker: ROC), raising $24 million in an upsized initial public offering. The company plans to use the proceeds to hire key personnel, upgrade its neural-processing infrastructure for training AI algorithms, and for general working capital. For the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, the company reported $16 million in revenue. While ROC is a U.S.-based company, the biometrics and identity security space is global. In Turkey, several companies are active in biometrics, including Papilon, which provides automated biometric identification systems, and Proline, which has worked on Turkish e-Passport and e-Identity projects. Other Turkish startups like Amani and Techsign are focused on AI-powered identity verification for various sectors. Recently, DenizBank, in partnership with IDEX Biometrics and Mastercard, launched biometric payment cards in Turkey. ROC's technology extends beyond fingerprints to include facial and iris recognition. The company has achieved top rankings in NIST evaluations for these other modalities as well, positioning itself as a strong competitor against foreign-built systems. This multimodal approach is a growing trend in the biometrics industry to enhance security. The company's offerings include a software development kit (ROC SDK) with algorithms for various biometric and object detection models, an enterprise-grade identity system (ROC ABIS), a video analytics platform (ROC Watch), and a remote identity verification solution (ROC Enroll). ROC's customer base includes U.S. federal agencies, law enforcement, and financial technology firms. The company has received over $8.2 million in U.S. federal contracts.
