Australian biometric software developer, Bio Recognition Systems (BRS), has signed a distribution agreement with General Lock.

The wholesale distributor and installer of commercial security hardware is one of the largest independent security technology companies in the United States.

Anthony Holman, chairman of BRS, said, the three-year contract, has a minimum value of several million dollars and gives BRS a national distribution channel and positioning in the growing Americas market.

Under the terms of the arrangement, BRS’ BioLock+ fingerprint recognition lock will be rebranded under General Lock’s private label, Helix 100 and distributed by Clark Security Products.

Clark – also party to the deal – is a US-based wholesale distributor and installer of locking products.

According to Holman, the genesis of this deal lies with BRS’ BioLock+ being recognized at The Security Summit – the US’ high profile security professionals’ annual conference – in California, in June 2008.

“Among the judges was locking industry authority, Marshall Merrifield, the president and major shareholder of General Lock,” said Holman.

“He acknowledged the technology as “ground-breaking” and was confident it would underpin a new market for fingerprint biometric locks in general residential and commercial use across North America.

“Within weeks, discussions commenced between Merrifield about distributing the product in the USA, Canada and Mexico.”

Holman claimed that the BioLock+, BRS’ third generation biometric access control technology, incorporates the ability to operate completely stand-alone, with all functions controlled from the unit, or networked for multiple doors to a PC.

“The unit supports 30-50 finger templates and 20,000 log transactions in stand-alone mode (80-100 templates and log transactions in network mode) as well as a wide range of optional programs, such as duress, man-trap and lock-out mode,” he said.

“[The] deal with General Lock represents the first time that the products have been formally represented in the Americas, a market that is tipped to grow to nearly US$7.5BN by 2012,” said Holman.

BRS is a privately owned company based in Lane Cove, Sydney Australia.

For the last five years it has been engaged in the development, manufacture and support of proprietary biometric readers and associated software solutions.