Biometrics: Important Role in Physical Access Control

(physical access controls)

Biometrics Plays an Important Role in Physical Access Control

Biometrics identifies a person via a unique human characteristic: the size and shape of a hand, a fingerprint, one’s face or several aspects of the eye. If the goal of an access control system is to control where people, not credentials, can and cannot go, then only a biometric device truly provides this capability to the end user.

As a result, biometrics is used on the front doors of thousands of businesses around the world, at the doors to the tarmacs of major airports, and at the entrances of other facilities where the combination of security and convenience are desired.

More than 900 biometric hand readers control client and employee access to special areas of Italian banks and more than 100 units perform similar functions in Russia. In the united Kingdom, Her Majesty's Prisons rely on biometrics for prisoner and visitor tracking.

Universities use hand readers for the on-campus meal program and to safeguard access to dormitories and to protect their computer centers. Hospitals utilize the biometric devices for access control and payroll accuracy.

Since 1991, biometric systems have produced millions of verifications at San Francisco International airport (SFO), with more than 50,000 produced on high volume days.

Hand readers span the entire airport, securing more than 180 doors and verifying the identity of more than 18,000 employees. The use of biometrics at San Francisco is airport-wide and fully integrated into the primary access control system.

—Based on information from
Biometrics.

More topics in the Biometrics: Index.