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.
 
Fingerprint 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.