In a recent trial by one of Europe’s largest security companies, the Third Millennium Template-on-a-Card biometric access control system came through with flying colours.
Using a customised version, this unqiue product could soon be fitted to all their UK sites.
So unique is the system that it won the Millennium Product Innovation Award at the Security Excellence Awards in November 1999, and it has been shortlisted for the Security Industry Awards to be presented at IFSEC this month.
What is it, and what can it do for you? It’s a biometric access control system which verifies the identity of a card-holder by reference to their fingerprints. But in contrast with other systems in which the fingerprint data is stored on a data network, the Template-on-a-Card system stores the information on the magstripe of an ID card.
Enrolling a new cardholder is a simple matter of sampling the user’s fingerprint, encoding and compressing it and then writing the data to the mag-stripe of the card. To use the card, the user swipes it through a mag-stripe reader and then verifies his identity with a fingerprint reader.
It’s comparable to requiring a user to key in their PIN to verify their identity, but because the user’s fingerprint is required, you can be certain that the person using the card is the person it was issued to – hence, no opportunity for people to use stolen or “borrowed” cards.
The Template-on-a-Card system has already produced major customer benefits in the building management and leisure industries.
The main benefits are:
- elimination of networking problems – no need to move large amounts of data
- simplification of multi-site installations
- enhanced security – fingerprint data remains with users
it addresses civil liberties and data protection concerns as the user keeps possession of his own fingerprint data
Encoding Fingerprints
Biometric systems generally don't store the complete image of a fingerprint, or for that matter the iris or whatever other part of the body is being used as the unique reference object. Rather, the image is scanned and reference points on the fingerprint are mapped and converted into a digital representation. There is no chance of a hacker being able to steal users' fingerprints. Indeed, the codes generated by the fingerprint reader are of little use to anyone else apart from the users to which they refer.Source
SMT
Postscript
Mike Davies is sales and marketing manager for Third Millennium Systems – www. third-millennium-sys.com
