Platinum Solutions announced that the Reston, Va., software development company and defense contractor is expanding its operations in Bridgeport. The company plans to hire at least 80 people by July 2009, with additional expansion possible in the next five years, to help it meet the requirements for a recently awarded federal agency contract.

Platinum Solutions Inc. announced it is part of the Lockheed Martin team that has been selected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to develop and implement the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division's Next Generation Identification (NGI) Program, an enhanced identification system utilizing biometric technology. As a core member of the winning Lockheed Martin team, Platinum Solutions will leverage its unique expertise in developing image analysis and biometrics systems for law enforcement and will continue its eight-year history of developing mission critical software systems for the FBI. The NGI system will expand fingerprint capacity, significantly increasing the size of the current database, and will now also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition capabilities. Additionally, the system requires a significant degree of technical flexibility in order to accommodate other biometric modalities that may mature and become important to law enforcement efforts in the future.