Thursday, December 16, 2010

Biometric Fingerprint Systems Not Just For Use in Law Enforcement

Of all the biometric techniques available now – from vein recognition to iris recognition to facial recognition – fingerprinting is the oldest and most well-known.  Not just for use in crime scene investigation or heavily secured laboratories anymore, biometric devices are being widely employed throughout various industries now. 
 
While fingerprinting may have started as simply a component of suspect processing and identification within law enforcement scenarios, its use has been used for far more mainstream activities over the past decades. Personal laptops now even come with fingerprint scanners built right into the keyboard. Cars are now being introduced with fingerprint access, to further reduce the “burden” of getting into your car, say, without your keys or remembering a numeric code.
 
F
ingerprint recognition is also being used in health club settings for access controol; in places where multiple users log onto shared computers or networks; and as part of a unique identifier for financial transactions. More and more everyday activities involve types of biometric security. Now that the application of these methods continues to expand, we wonder how accurate is it?

Each person has unique, immutable fingerprints. The patterns of our ridges and furrows, as well as our minutiae points, make our fingerprints different from everyone else’s. These make us uniquely quantifiable and verify our identity for security purposes.
 
Some fingerprint systems stop at these measurements, as that is what makes a system AFIS compliant.  But the true leaders in this market take it even further. The most successful technology companies incorporate palm prints, vein recognition, and flexible recording options into a comprehensive fingerprint system, where breaching is practically unheard of.  Add a more than 100,000 record database, varied search capabilities and 100% non-manual interaction, and the risk of unreliability is extremely diminished.
 
While no system is ever 100% infallible, the right combination of screening methods can provide utmost security and authenticity. And nothing happens in a vacuum. Human interaction, in addition to state of the art gadgets is the best way to protect against vulnerability.  After all, that’s what happens when I lose my car keys – I call someone on my very high-tech phone.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Body Worn Video Heralded a "Game Changer"

Body Worn Video is taking hold in police departments nationwide.  More forces are starting to employ this state of the art aid in their daily beats -- about a handful in each state.  And the more these devices become operational, the more we are hearing about the necessity of using them.

Most officers don't know what they're missing until they start using the comfortable, reliable and easy-to-use systems, which are worn on their headgear. In Burnsville, Minnesota, for example - dashboard video cameras are being removed in favor of the body worn devices on each and every officer.  The benefits far outweigh the critiques, as far as Hunter Systems Group is concerned.

The portable video recorders are constantly in "active" status, and with the touch of the record button, the previous 30 seconds of "live action" becomes part of the intentional recording.  Recordings then become a digital part of the police department's RMS, allowing for easy archival, retrieval and management of files.  The files are password protected, and are not able to edited.  This is especially helpful is credibility issues, since the recording cannot be altered.  With such indisputable evidence, cases develop -- or are dismissed for lack of supporting evidence -- more quickly than ever before.

In these cases, the body worn video systems, while an expense to the city or state operating budgets, are predicted to more than pay for themselves in fewer fruitless cases being pursued,  and processing efficiencies that are made possible with these "gold-standard" accessories.  These are not just niceties to a police department -- they are absolute requirements.  No longer viewed as a product of the future, body worn video has entered the scene and shown its utmost worth.

Hopefully more police departments, government agencies, border patrols and law enforcement everywhere will soon follow suit,  This trend has exploded, and we don't see it dissipating anytime soon.