BIOMETRICS - The Future of Hardware

A man walks up to a door and places his thumb on a plate, which in turn scans his fingerprint for cross referencing of information within an organization's employee file.  The system then notes the date, the time and if this particular employee should be granted access to the area.  While the man stands in front of the locked door, he leans his face forward towards a small reset box in the wall.  As if by magic a led light indicates the system is working and a light passes over the man's face at his eye level.  The system notes the individual's retina scan information and works behind the scene to cross reference this data with that it previously located on the employee by the fingerprint scan.  By combining this information and doing a cross reference verification with the authorization information stored deeper within the building the biometric and electronic system determines if the employee is allowed access to the building, room or area at any given date or time.  Sounds like something out of a science fiction story, right?

Well, you may wish to think again.  Biometric Security Technology has not only made huge bounds in the area of reliability, but, it has also found that wonderful niche in a social and technological leap, where it has become widely desired (because of the vast monitoring capabilities) in comparison to other options biometric systems are often found very cost effective. 

First, what is biometrics?

Biometrics is the identification of individuals based upon physical and behavioral characteristics.  This is accomplished by matching electronic computer systems with security hardware devices, which match these characteristics in a noninvasive way to the user by matching previously determined "patterns" against information records of those patterns for individuals, where data on those individuals was previously gathered. Some examples of this technology are: Fingerprint scanning, Iris scanning, voice recognition, hand and face recognition.

What are some of the applications where Biometric Technology is currently being utilized?

The utilization of biometrics and their current range of applications by multiple industries, may just surprise you.  Listed below, are just a few of the applications and industries where biometrics are currently being utilized. 

• Aviation Security

• Gaming

• Personal Identity

• Prison Security

• Body Identification - Hurricane Katrina & Children lost during the Indian Tsunami

• Corporate Time & Attendance Recording - Cost Tracking & EE verification

• Border Control - United States & Germany

• Facility Access, identification of potential Homeland Security Threats, Biometric Passport issuing to assist in limiting forgeries and unapproved access to certain countries, along with tracking from what countries and geographical locations an individual is traveling to or from (travel history) for flagging if suspicious patterns are suspected.

• Healthcare Facilities and Records Control - Iris Scanning to control Facilities Access and HIPPA Compliance

• Transportation - Verification that Pilots, Seamen, Drivers, etc. are who they claim to be.

• Colleges & Universities - Smart card Technology utilized to control access to various facilities and reduce costs associated with password protection.

• Immigration - Biometrics used to identify and track temporary immigrants and speed background investigation times.

• Police & Public Safety - Fingerprint scanning used to cut down on hardcopy paper of criminal bookings, tracking of criminals within a system and to share information from a centralized database, increasing the effectiveness of the police force's activities.

• Banking & Financial Transactions - used to verify personal identity for ATMs, Bank Transactions and On-line retail transactions.

• I.T. Security - Both Large and Small are utilizing biometrics to identify and track employees, allowing access to facilities, also allowing easier and more efficient change of security access when employees move internally within an organization.

• Schools K-12 - Have implemented programs to assist in limiting access to school facilities by unauthorized individuals, along with tracking, monitoring and providing permission to children while they utilize the Internet on educational facility computers.

• Personal Computer Security - IBM has already begun to build personal laptops where a biometric finger scan is used in place of someone typing in a password on their laptop.  Also, the cost of adding a quick and easy fingerprint scan/password protection USB port device to a person's computer ranges easily between $39 and up.  You can also purchase flash drives with a built-in fingerprint scanner from $79-269, which isn't too bad since you also have the flash drive capacity ranging from 128MB-1GB.

Microsoft is working in cooperation with the Biometric Industry Association of America to set up and determine standards within the biometric industry.  With Microsoft's integration of biometric security into its product (laptop) sales, they are sending a message to the industry that this technology is available and are driving the Biometric Marketplace into the forefront of technology and raising security level and awareness nationwide for the United States.  There already exists a widespread acceptance of this technology in other parts of the World, in areas, such as, Germany, London, Asia.

How wide spread has biometrics become?

If the Market Statistics listed above are any indication of the growth trend within the industry, then certainly there is profit to be had by anyone interested in this line of products.  Obviously, the application of biometrics crosses many industries with the development of technology and furthering of the biometric industry through the establishment of widespread standards, biometrics will continue to grow at a rapid pace.  As indicated in both the charts above and in evidenced by the current application usage previously listed, which spans the globe, biometrics is not only here to stay, but is a healthy, innovative and rapidly growing sector of the security and hardware industries.

Why biometrics and Why now?

After 9/11, the United States Government along with the private industry sector sought to increase security within our nation's boarders.  By the implementation of the Homeland Securities Act and resulting from various well publicized fall-out from the media's and country's critical, pointing out lapses in security and potential future international and domestic terrorist targets, individual and corporate security has been the motivational factor behind much of the rapid and widespread acceptance of biometric technology.  No longer do individual American's view biometrics as something solely found within science fiction movies, but increasingly, they are looking to biometrics as a way to secure their physical safety and the safety of their private data.

Although the reason for the need of such technology saddens us, Independence2, LLC is determined to embrace biometric technology and assist our Customer/Partners in their ability to add this type of product line to the stellar services they already offer to their End-User and that they bring to the Distribution Supply Chain.

We refuse to allow our Distributor/Partners to be left behind, as more and more of the traditional Hardware Suppliers seek to cut into the Distributor's profit margins by selling these high-technology products either directly to the End-User (occasionally masking those efforts by way of subsidiary companies) or through the use of "big box" houses and offering these products to the mass market and general public.

Why should Distributors be interested in biometrics?

Distributors should leap at the chance to advance their product lines, because:

1.  Biometrics will open new or unexplored markets for Distributors within their current geographical regions as previous Academic Institutions, Hospitals, Schools, Government Facilities and  Private Enterprises all seek to "upgrade" their security measures and biometrics can and will play a key role in this revenue stream.

2.    Biometrics lends itself, by the nature of the product line, to continuous aftermarket re-sales, as the various organizations realize the ease of use, the cost effectiveness versus previously offered high technology security answers and new and even more diverse applications for biometric products are developed.

3.    There is currently not any one company that has cornered the industry on providing biometric products, so "brand" recognition does not exist to a great extent.  This allows the Distributor to offer a smaller product line within their product line (i.e. instead of carrying 60 different locks, most Distributors will need only carry one or two of the different biometric products, such as a fingerprint scanner, a iris scanner or a voice recognition device, which are all compatible when placed together and can work concurrently, which will assist the Distributor in selling entire systems to the End-User.  Also, it is far more likely that an End-User will chose to implement only one type of biometric control on-site at a time as End-Users/National Consumers adopt and accept biometric technology further into their daily lives.  Depending on operational size and need for security, the End-User may only be in the market for a fingerprint scanner.  This is highly likely since the fingerprint scanning sector of the biometric industry is projected to continue to experience the fastest growth.  However, in its current stage of implementation, the Distributor will have greater control over the biometric inventory they carry and therefore a shorter time to market and less costs association within their own supply chain.

4.   There exists an extraordinary opportunity for the Distributor, because of the ability to utilize and integrate biometric products within an End-User's daily life (i.e., IBM's fingerprint password protecting laptop device), as biometrics continue to become an added addition to personal computer security (where its growth has already begun) and then moving on to the even more widespread acceptance of biometric fingerprint scanning devices (as a start), when I.T. Departments begin their own assessment and implementation of those type of inexpensive security measures for their computer hardware and password software control.

5.   Where architectural fads come and go and lock choices differ though the ages, the motivating factors that have spurred the biometric industry's fast paced growth, such as, personal physical security and personal private information security, brought on by such incidents as 9/11 and the rampant identity-theft and information security breaches (i.e. that of ChoicePoint's 4,900 records illegal access by a FL officer reported by MSNBC on 9/16/05) are very unfortunate and discomforting incidents which are not going to be far from the minds of most Americans, now and into the future.  Hence, biometrics and the need for stricter  individual and corporate physical and personal information security will continue its obvious growth trend. 

1 - Internetnews.com, "STATS, December 12, 2002, "Study:Homeland Security to Spur Biometrics Growth", by Ryan Naraine

2 - Facilities Engineering Journal, "Security Update, Homeland Security Center For Excellence Opens", Facilities Engineering Journal, "Security Update, Homeland Security Center For Excellence Opens"

3 - Findbiometerics, Dublin, Ireland, Research and Markets, "Demand for Access Control and Security Surveillance Technologies Have Registered a Boom in Recent Years and it is Forecast that this will Further Proliferate at an AAGR (annual average growth rate) of 10.2-36.9% til 2009; information excerpted from Research and Markets, "Access Control Technologies and Market Forecast World Over (2007)"

4 - Research and Markets, "Biometric Fingerprint and Market Opportunities, Strategies, and Forecasts, 2005-2010"

5 - Freedonia, "World Security Equipment", December 2004

6 - Chart - The International Biometrics Group, "Biometrics Market and Industry Report 2004-2008"

7 - Chart - Allied Business Intelligence "Total Biometrics Revenue World Market 2000-2007"

8 - Chart - Freedonia Group, "World Security Equipment Sales By Region, 2008"

9 - Chart - The International Biometrics Group, 2004 "Global Biometrics Revenue By Sector"