U.S. Department of Defense Extends Contract with Viisage.

BILLERICA, Mass. -- D.C. Department of Corrections and DoD Counter-Terrorism Efforts to Benefit from Viisage Face Recognition-Enabled Identity Solutions

Viisage (Nasdaq: VISG), a leading provider of advanced technology identity solutions, today announced that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office, which manages the inter-agency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) program, has extended its contract with Viisage for an additional year. The DoD and homeland security research and development contract extensions, valued at $879,000, include investments for the DoD's Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT), D.C. Department of Corrections, and various members of Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community. Viisage expects to deliver these solutions and recognize revenue over the first three quarters of 2005.

TSWG, which is chartered with advancing the development of technologies that could play critical roles in combating terrorism, will use the funding to expand the ongoing work that began with Viisage in 1998.

"TSWG has an important mission to rapidly develop technologies and equipment to meet the high priority needs of the combating terrorism community. As outlined in the Intelligence Reform Bill, identifying people is a critical component to these efforts," said David Herrington, program manager, TSWG. "Technologies and solutions that specialize in the identification of people, like those from Viisage, are essential for many of the TSWG program's success."

The BAT is a computerized personnel-identification system developed with the support of TSWG at the Battle Command Battle Laboratory at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. BAT uses three forms of identification and recognition technology-- fingerprinting, iris recognition, and Viisage's face recognition products to build electronic dossiers tied to biometric signatures. These dossiers of detainees and suspects under intelligence investigation can be shared throughout the intelligence community.

As part of the contract extension, Viisage will continue to support the Battle Command Battle Laboratory with ongoing improvements to the BAT system by providing updated face recognition technology, using its FaceTOOLS(R) product. FaceTOOLS(R) incorporates the industry's most advanced face recognition technology in an architecture that will accommodate future performance and accuracy improvements and features the latest advances in "fused" face recognition technology utilizing multiple facial matching techniques.

Viisage is also conducting a face recognition pilot project with the District of Columbia's Department of Corrections. To date, Viisage has built an Internet-accessible, centralized face images and demographic database from D.C. Department of Corrections' booking records. The goal of the project is to use this advanced data repository to provide the infrastructure and a solution environment to facilitate information sharing between Federal, State, and Local agencies and support homeland security and the Global War on Terrorism.

With this first system component in place, additional information can be added to the database, such as terrorist watch list photos and most wanted entries. Other Federal, State, and Local agencies in the Washington, D.C. area will be granted access to D.C. Department of Corrections' face recognition database through a secure Internet connection, or a dedicated connection, to assist them in investigations, criminal identification, screening processes, and combating terrorism.

In the past, Viisage's work with TSWG has included applications for access control, surveillance, and large database searching for various federal, military and intelligence agencies.

"The Department of Defense's Technical Support Working Group has consistently set the standard for the application of advanced technologies in many national and international homeland security efforts," said Bernard Bailey, president and CEO of Viisage. "This contract extension will allow us to build on the field-proven success we have had in working with TSWG on these programs."

About Viisage

Viisage (NASDAQ: VISG) delivers advanced technology identity solutions for governments, law enforcement agencies and businesses concerned with enhancing security, reducing identity theft, and protecting personal privacy. Viisage solutions include secure credentials such as passports and drivers' licenses, biometric technologies for uniquely linking individuals to those credentials, and credential authentication technologies to ensure the documents are valid before individuals are allowed to cross borders, gain access to finances, or granted other privileges. With over 3,000 installations worldwide, Viisage's identity solutions stand out as a result of the Company's industry-leading technology and unique understanding of customer needs. Viisage's product suite includes FaceTOOLS(R) SDK, Viisage PROOF(TM), FaceEXPLORER(R), iA-thenticate(R), BorderGuard(R), FacePASS(TM) and FaceFINDER(R).

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements in this document and those made from time to time by Viisage through its senior management are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to the future events or financial performance discussed in this release, based on management's beliefs and assumptions and information currently available. When used, the words "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "project", "should", "expect", "plan", "assume" and similar expressions that do not relate solely to historical matters identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements concerning future plans or results are necessarily only estimates and actual results could differ materially from expectations. Certain factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, among other things, the size and timing of contract awards, performance on contracts, availability and cost of key components, unanticipated results from audits of the financial results of acquired companies, changing interpretations of generally accepted accounting principles, outcomes of government reviews, potential fluctuations in quarterly results, dependence on large contracts and a limited number of customers, lengthy sales and implementation cycles, market acceptance of new or enhanced products and services, proprietary technology and changing competitive conditions, system performance, management of growth, dependence on key personnel, ability to obtain project financing, general economic and political conditions and other factors affecting spending by customers, the unpredictable nature of working with government agencies and other risks, uncertainties and factors including those described from time to time in Viisage's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation, Viisage's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2003 and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Viisage expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.