Biometric Access Control Systems are Not Just for Your Smartphone

By Jocelyn Levy | 2nd November 2020 | 8 min read

Many of you reading this use biometric access control systems everyday on your smartphone. You use it because it’s fast, incredibly simple and because it gives your phone an extra level of security. There’s no reason those same benefits could not be applied to your everyday working life – in fact – that’s exactly what we do here a BioStore.

Using biometric access control systems for secure attendance

If biometric access control systems are good enough to grant you access to your phone, why not the office? At BioStore, we let you register your attendance and gain access to office locations using just your fingerprint.

Employees don’t have to remember a work smartcard, or a complex password that needs changing every few months. All they need to bring to work, is themselves. A fingerprint is always on them, it can’t be lost, it can’t be stolen, and it can’t be improperly lent out.

In this way, biometric access control systems are not only incredibly convenient, but secure for everyone involved too.

Ensuring security of biometric access control systems

Security of biometric access control systems is paramount. It’s truly the main benefit of using such a solution, ensuring your workplace is only accessed by those who have authorisation. But the security of your office biometric solution wouldn’t work in the same way that a phone’s does. Smartphones biometric security relies on storing your biometric on only the device itself, offline, and no where else.

For an office solution the likes we use at BioStore, that’s not possible and therefore not our approach. Instead, BioStore’s system works by creating what we call a template. The template is based off of your fingerprint, but it uses just 40-60 minutia points (the ridges) in your finger to make a template. The rest of the image of your fingerprint is then discarded.

From the template we store to make the biometric system work, the original fingerprint could not be recreated – there is simply not enough data. This system allows us to deliver a biometric solution with enough accuracy to securely authorise employees, but at the same time, not put people’s privacy or biometric data at risk. Additionally, all the data we do store is encrypted to a high level.

More than attendance with biometric access control systems

Biometric access control systems go beyond just registering attendance and granting access to locations. They can be used to grant access to all kinds of services and applications too, such as catering, lockers, or print management. Any scenario around the office that could benefit from an identity authorisation has the potential to be linked to the same biometric access control system.

When you do that, you give employees an easy-to-use, fast and secure office. Take the security and convenience of the biometric in your phone – and give it to your employees everyday in the workplace too.