The Biometric Consortium is a US government sponsored consortium created by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

[1] It serves as the US government focal point for the research, development, testing, evaluation and application of biometric-based personal authentication technology.

The Biometric Consortium met for the first time in October 1992 under the chairmanship of Dr. Benincasa.

The objective of the Biometric Consortium is to provide a forum for information exchange on biometric technology among the Government, industry and academia.

The Biometric Consortium's charter was formally approved on December 7, 1995, by the Facilities Protection Committee, a committee that reports to the Security Policy Board through the Security Policy Forum.