LAHORE, April 29: A US public listed company plans to shortly introduce fingerprint technology in Pakistan and invest some $2.5 million to set up a security device manufacturing facility, said an official of the company.

Talking to the reporters here on Tuesday Alpha Virtual’s Tariq Khan said the company was preparing feasibility of the project to build fingerprint modules here along with software applications.

“We already have acquired an US-based IT firm, EssTec, with an office in Lahore. The establishment of the plant would just be an expansion of our business operations in Pakistan as we’re already represented here,” Mr Khan said.

He said the proposed security device — fingerprint modules — manufacturing plant would be set up only after Alpha Virtual had completed the process of acquisition of another company Veridicom that has invested $40 million to build fingerprint authentication chip. Once

the acquisition was completed, he said, “we would take final decision about building the fingerprint modules here in Pakistan.”

Mr Khan said the potential for fingerprint technology was massive in Pakistan with a high population that had no public records. He said the “chips” for the modules would be imported from Korea while the plastic housing for them would be manufactured here.