Biometrics Interoperability, Performance, and Assurance Working Group
			NIST, and the Biometric Consortium have established the Biometric Interoperability, Performance, and Assurance Working Group to broaden the utilization and acceptance of biometric technologies and to facilitate and encourage, under the Biometric Consortium, further exchange of information and collaborative efforts between users and private industry in all things biometric. The purpose of this Working Group is to support advancement of technically efficient and compatible biometrics technology solutions on a national and international basis by addressing required issues and efforts other than current and on-going developments already undertaken by other national or international organizations (e.g., formal standards bodies, industrial consortium developments, and on-going testing efforts) .   Select the link above to find out more about the Biometrics Interoperability, Performance, and Assurance Working Group.
	Operating Under the Biometrics Interoperability, Performance, and Assurance Working Group:
			Common Biometric Exchange File Format (CBEFF)
			On February 21st 1999, the Information Technology Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the US Biometric Consortium sponsored a Workshop to discuss the potential for reaching industry consensus in a common fingerprint template format. As a result of the workshop, the participants agreed to develop a "technology-blind" biometric file format that will facilitate handling different biometric types, versions, and biometric data structures in a common way.  Three additional Workshops were held and a CBEFF document (NISTIR 6529) was published on January 3, 2001. NISTR 6529 may be downloaded at http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/isis/bc/cbeff .  On April 5, 2004, NISTR 6529-A was published to augment and revise the 2001 document.  NISTR 6529-A may be downloaded at http://www.itl.nist.gov/div893/biometrics/documents/NISTIR6529A.pdf