Janice Kephart

Janice Kephart – Senior Biometric Interagency Coordinator/Biometrics Interagency Working Group Director, Futures Identity, Office of Biometric Identity Management, Department of Homeland Security and CEO, Identity Strategy Partners.

  Immediately prior to her work in direct support of DHS OBIM Futures Identity, she supported DOD’s Biometrics Chief Engineer in architecture, requirements and stakeholder engagement, including the founding of the Biometrics Interagency Working Group. Her work includes directing the BIWG for the past 5 years, which is chartered to serve more than 40 biometric and related programs across the executive branch. In spring 2024, Kephart delivered the initial report on behalf of DHS and DOJ delivered to the White House Office of Science and Technology on EO 14074 13e assessing the use of biometrics by federal law enforcement and determining best practices for federal, state and local law enforcement.

She has been invited to testify before the UN Security Council and the US Congress 19 times on issues pertaining to identity, biometrics, visa and border policies, REAL ID, and various legislative initiatives upon conclusion of her position as border counsel to the 9/11 Commission. On the Commission, Janice recommended biometric borders, founded the terms biometric borders, terrorist travel, and the phrase we must assure that people are who they say they are explained in her and her teammate’s monograph, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel.

Prior to that, she had two laws unanimously passed and signed into law, one that digitized identity theft and the other that enabled information-sharing on millennial cyber solutions. Janice won the 2015 Women in Biometrics Award, one of five women from over 50 nominated; has appeared on all major broadcasting networks multiple times as an identity and national security subject matter expert; been keynote at numerous conferences; and has lectured at Princeton, Villanova and George Mason University.

She was (what became) Idemia’s (then MorphoTrak) Homeland Security Director prior to founding Identity Strategy Partners (IdSP). IdSP currently supports DHS OBIM and OBIM FI, and the Pentagon’s OUSD(I&S) Identity Intelligence Directorate, SOCOM’s Identity Intelligence Exploitation Cell, and has past performance with DOD PM Biometrics and the State Department. In early 2025, she will launch a SaaS tool that automates new hire onboarding focused on the federally required Form I-9 with an identity-first solution, found at ZipIDapp.com.