Tony Perez carved out a successful career in building businesses around break-through products rooted in technology, security and innovation. His first security experience occurred when he received a U.S. Army “secret” clearance to work with nuclear tactical weapons. Mr. Perez received a field promotion to U.S. Army Captain, Artillery, and was awarded the Purple Heart in combat. This military experience grounded him in the importance of security best practices, which he implements in working with new product development.

His initial start-up experience was with IMAGIC, a video gaming business, where he served as Vice President of Operations. He built the department from the ground up, overseeing manufacturing operations and steered the company to $70 million in video games shipments worldwide in his first year. Mr. Perez later founded Safety Syringes, a suite of medical devices where he received 10 U.S. patents and FDA approval for 5 medical devices. In 2012, the company was sold to Becton-Dickinson, a leading global medical device technology company.

Mr. Perez is a futurist who became intrigued with cyber-technology and the growing danger of cyber-attacks at scale, that led to identity theft, ransomware, etc. In an online world where large-scale devastating hacking events were becoming commonplace, his research pointed out that passwords needed to be replaced. As a behavioralist, he determined that creating a user-friendly passwordless login was the best approach to helping online users to protect themselves and their organizations. He created a unique identity and authentication technology (called Photolok^®) that replaces passwords and/or passphrases with greater online security.

Today Photolok is a passwordless Single Sign On login method comprised of an Identity Provider (using photos) and Authentication Server (using OAuth 2.0 and Open ID Connect). Photolok is the first consumer-friendly login method that provides situational security protection by allowing the user to label photos for 1-Time Use and Duress. Photolok can also be used as a second factor behind biometrics to prevent a compromised biometric from reaching the user destination. Netlok is currently offering Photolok through Auth0’s Marketplace as a Social Connections Partner.

In July 2017, Mr. Perez received his first U.S. Patent and, in 2018, his second U.S. Patent for his photo-based authentication technology (branded as Photolok). In October 2017, Netlok started to receive innovation awards as a state-of-the-art identity and authentication solution.

Mr. Perez received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from California State University in Los Angeles and dual master’s degrees in Public Administration and Healthcare Administration from the University of Southern California where he also focused on Future Studies, Behavioral and Organizational Theory. He is an insightful, engaging, dynamic and passionate speaker on cyber-security, and his TEDx talk entitled “Black Hats Rising” gained an enthusiastic response. Mr. Perez enjoys living in Santa Barbara, CA.