In 2010, IDEX SmartFinger Film was launched, a thin and flexible fingerprint sensor that allows the entire fingerprint sensor system to be built into a standard plastic card, such as credit cards, bank cards and national ID cards. Such system-on-card solutions with a microprocessor running biometric algorithms and storage of biometric user data embedded ensure that biometric data never leaves the card itself. This safeguards privacy. In the fall of 2012, IDEX changed its market focus. Until then, the company had emphasized the use of the technology in cards. The shift came after
Apple acquired IDEX's competitor AuthenTec. This acquisition was a harbinger that fingerprint readers would be built into mobile phones, IDEX believed, which was reiterated when Apple introduced its iPhone with a fingerprint reader in the fall of 2013. Since then, several mobile manufacturers followed Apple's example and launched mobile phones with fingerprint solutions. IDEX's SmartFinger Film sensor technology is based on polymer process technologies and offers small, ultra-thin and flexible swipe fingerprint sensors. IDEX holds early patents for low-cost
capacitive fingerprint sensors and has a cross-licence with
Apple relating to this technology. IDEX has demonstrated mobile phone-related technology implementations running on an
Android platform, as well as a technology concept for fingerprint sensors built into the cover glass of mobile phones. Finger recognition solutions for
Apple iPhone and
iPad using SmartFinger have been launched. IDEX's technology has also been integrated in biometric ISO-compliant cards. Fingerprint-based authentication of payment cards has gradually become the main focus of the company's efforts to commercialize its technology. In March 2021, the company started shipping TrustedBio, a new generation of sensors specifically targeting the card market. ==Global Partners==