Project Lifesaver Partners With FaceTec to Identify At-Risk Children and Adults

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Aug 26, 2026, 14:02 ET

UR^® Codes chosen to provide first responders with critical identity information

SUMMERLIN, Nev., Aug. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- FaceTec, Inc., the world leader in 3D biometric cybersecurity and identity verification, is proud to announce an important partnership with Project Lifesaver International, the premier search-and-rescue program created to find and bring to safety at-risk individuals prone to the life-threatening tendency to leave their safe environment due to autism, dementia, and other cognitive conditions.

The primary mission of Project Lifesaver is to provide timely responses to saving lives and reducing potential injury for adults and children with the propensity to leave their safe housing due to cognitive conditions. Formed out of search and rescue 27 years ago, Project Lifesaver equips and trains local sheriffs, police, and first responders with specialized locating technologies, innovative search-and-rescue methods, and education so at-risk individuals can be quickly and safely recovered, ultimately "bringing loved ones home", while offering peace of mind to caregivers. It was the first organization to significantly address the elopement issue among at-risk individuals, and since 1999 has been the only nonprofit organization actively educating and equipping public safety agencies in the protection, search, and safe recovery of those who have become lost. To date, Project Lifesaver has rescued more than 4,650 lost individuals.

In partnership with Project Lifesaver, FaceTec is providing advanced biometric identity verification technology to the location bracelets provided to the at-risk population. Adding UR Codes to bracelets, and issuing additional UR Codes on labels for clothes, shoes, and other personal items, provides extra layers of identity assurance, supporting identification. Any good samaritan with a smartphone in the community can now scan the UR Code, see the encoded identity information, see designated contact information for the local law enforcement or specified first responder, and match the biometric data in the UR Code to the lost person's face, positively identifying the individual.

"FaceTec is honored to be working with Project Lifesaver to enhance the ability of first responders to identify individuals who have become lost or disoriented. UR Codes provide a secure, cost-effective means of accessing an individual's identity information, emergency contact information and specific needs," said Owen McShane, FaceTec's VP of Government Relations.

"We have worked closely with Gene Saunders and the Project Lifesaver team to adapt UR Codes to their locator bracelet so that anyone in a community can now be empowered to assist first responders to find and identify at-risk individuals who have gone missing," said Trevor Chaplick, FaceTec's Chief Legal Officer and VP for Corporate Development.

At its annual conference in Orlando, Project Lifesaver International announced the adoption of FaceTec's UR Codes nationwide. Gene Saunders, the founder and CEO of Project Lifesaver International, believes that UR Codes close a critical gap in Project Lifesaver's ability to more quickly identify a participant and empower the community to help accelerate the identification and rescue process.

"Project Lifesaver and FaceTec, working together with the UR Codes, will considerably broaden our member agencies' ability to quickly and safely identify located individuals and return them home," Saunders said.

In full support of the program and partnership from law enforcement, Saratoga County Sheriff Jeff Brown added, "My agency has been using FaceTec for our HR 218 and retiree ID cards for some time. The UR Codes have brought them to the next level of security."

Further, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said, "A UR Code on sheriffs' IDs lets partner agencies, businesses, or citizens instantly verify a credential is current and unrevoked, reducing impersonation and speeding up verification. It's also useful for retirees, letting anyone quickly confirm active HR 218 (LEOSA) qualification status without a phone call or paperwork."

FaceTec licensed its UR Code software at no cost and in perpetuity to Project Lifesaver, demonstrating its strong support for Project Lifesaver's mission of saving lives in our most vulnerable populations.

More information and upcoming, related events can be found at the following links:

Project Lifesaver 2026 Conference

Identity Week America Panel Discussion, Sept 2, 16:45 - 17:05
How UR codes are being used by law enforcement in the US, Seminar Theater B
Moderator: Owen McShane, VP of Government Relations, FaceTec, Inc.
Panel participants: Craig D. Apple Sr, Sheriff, Albany County; Gene Saunders, Founder, Project Lifesaver; Mike Zurlo, Education Outreach Coordinator, FaceTec, Inc.

Introduction To UR Codes By Owen McShane, Education 2.0 Keynote USA 2026: How Biometric Technology can Help Fight the Rising Tide of Identity Fraud and Fake IDs

White paper: UR Codes Provide Superior Matching & Fraud Mitigation in Healthcare

About UR Codes

FaceTec's UR Codes enable codeholders to prove their legal identity, age, and the right to access their accounts or privileges with high confidence, both in-person and remotely. UR Codes can contain embedded, digitally-signed biometric and legal identity information, ensuring privacy-preserving, decentralized identity verification. Safely storing unique, signed face data, personal info, and legal identity data, UR Codes provide secure, low-cost, two-party identity verification at unlimited scale in any identity-related scenario from any issuing authority, such as a DMV, passport issuer, school, or employer. For more information, visit the following resources:

About FaceTec

FaceTec is a global force in the fight against identity fraud. For use on standard, ubiquitous digital devices, FaceTec's patented biometric security software solutions provide exceptionally secure, remote, unsupervised identity verification and authentication, ensuring that only the legitimate account owner is allowed access to their valuable or sensitive digital services, assets, and systems.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in the US with staff in the UK, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, and Canada, FaceTec is the world's leading provider of 3D face biometric Liveness and matching software, processing over 4 billion 3D Liveness Checks in the last 12 months, protecting sensitive information in high-risk, high-value environments, including banking and finance, government, major e-commerce, global social networks, digital national IDs and mobile driver licenses, and much more.

FaceTec's AI-driven technology employs advanced algorithms and deep learning models to accurately and securely bind, verify, and re-verify individuals based on their unique face biometrics. FaceTec's patented, industry-leading Certified 3D Liveness Detection and face matching, UR^® Codes, optical character recognition, Know Your Customer (KYC), and age estimation technology anchor the chain of trust in the IDV process for secure access to mobile and web applications.

FaceTec technology has been exhaustively tested against tens-of-millions of digital and physical spoof artifacts - including high-resolution photos and videos, life-like masks, and mannequin heads - as well as against much more sophisticated injection and bypass-type attacks, all of which are now easily blocked. With ongoing, advanced AI development and the world's only Spoof Bounty Program, FaceTec continues to stay ahead of ever-changing attack methods.

For more information and business inquiries, please visit FaceTec.com. For media inquiries, please contact John Wojewidka at [email protected].

About FaceTec 3D Face Verification

FaceTec's pioneering, patented 3D Face Biometrics are the global standard in secure onboarding, KYC, Identity verification and reverification, to stop ID fraud and protect billions of people on six continents from unauthorized usage of their identities.

FaceTec's 3D Face Verification Platform features:

100% data-sovereign, customer-run software: no user data is sent to FaceTec
World-leading 3D Face Matching rate at 1-in-125 million FAR at <1% FRR
Patented UI generates data-rich 3D FaceMaps^® from standard 2D cameras
UR^® Codes enable secure, low-cost two-party remote identity verification
$600,000 Spoof Bounty Program certified Level 4 in Spoof/Bypass Security Testing
Level 1-5 Certified 3D Liveness Detection, and Level 4 Bypass Certification
Unphishable 3D FaceMaps ensure trust without creating honeypots
Support for all modern smartphones, tablets, and PCs with webcams
KYC/IDV Dashboard with integrated 1-to-N deduplication to catch fraudsters
World-leading 1-in-2 million FAR 3D FaceMap-to-2D-photo-ID matching
Anonymous, better-than-human 3D age estimation and 3D age checks
Fast, intuitive interface with 98-99% first-time-user success rates
Easy to integrate, customize, deploy, and manage

Developers can download FaceTec's demo apps directly from FaceTec.com for iOS, Android, and any modern browser. FaceTec sample apps are also available for free testing at dev.facetec.com.

About Liveness.com

Liveness.com is an educational resource for biometrics users, vendors, analysts, media, and regulators, providing a comprehensive history of Level 1-5 Presentation Attack Detection, Template Tampering, and Camera Bypasses, as well as explanations of methods and means for evaluation, certification testing, and bounty programs.

SOURCE FaceTec, Inc.