Although many biometric-based security solutions fall short of the mark when it comes to overall protection and serving as a credible source of evidence in law enforcement, there are characteristics that typify comprehensive offerings that should have the would-be criminal worried.
Experts in the personal identification technology space believe that whilst organised crime is gaining knowledge of the latest developments in this specialist area of technology, many of the existing solutions fail to meet global standards and most implementations do not comply with regulatory requirements.
“This means that evidence obtained from these readers may not be admissible in a Court of Law, and because they do not comply with regulations, they could pose a major risk to the organisation or the privacy of individuals,” says Marius Coetzee, MD, Ideco.
The company is an established leader in the application of biometric technology and Southern Africa’s primary distributor of Morpho fingerprint biometric solutions.
Ideco has established a leadership position in the market and has contributed substantially to South Africa long-time dominance in the world market in the adoption of biometrics for access control and time & attendance applications.
According to Coetzee, the company has come across cases where biometric evidence was redundant because the reader could not synchronise the transaction to an event of crime or the fingerprint was so poor that the expert could not link back to the culprit.
“Successful biometrics starts with good quality enrolment using equipment that meets FBI requirements. The complete solution should meet all the regulatory requirements that protects the data, the privacy of the individual, the processing and can guarantee no tampering or manipulation at any stage of the system,” Coetzee continues.
In terms of the cost of investing in this technology, Coetzee says that biometrics is mostly used to secure the lives of employees, protect assets and measure productivity.
“The price gap between comparable competing readers can easily vary by up to 120% and in many cases customers would go for the cheaper alternative for budget reasons only to find out in a CCMA case the evidence is of no use,” he adds.
Ideco confirms that the most effective biometric solution – as far as security is concerned – is one that is consistently accurate, continuously reliable and completely compliant to regulatory and judicial requirements.