
IT Networks
Biometrics play a key role in ensuring that IT devices, from computers to cell phones,
respond only to authorized users. Biometrically enabled devices can verify and authorize
one or more users without the need for easily stolen or forgotten passwords. Institutions
that employ from 5 to 50,000 employees, whether working on site or at remote locations,
can secure their IT networks through a variety of Biometric technologies.
Time and Attendance
Employers want to be sure that their employees are on-site and doing their jobs when
they are supposed to be there. Using biometrics to verify time and attendance does
away with "buddy punching," in which one employee punches in an absent employee's
time card. Employees benefit from Biometric verification as well, because Biometrics
helps safeguard their time and attendance records against employers' manipulation or
mistakes.
Universities
Biometric technologies are in growing use in colleges and universities. Biometrically
enabled smart cards specific to individual students, faculty, and staff authenticate identity
to control access to classrooms, dormitories, and libraries. In addition, IT networks in
colleges and universities are being protected by biometric devices, with the added benefit
of reducing the costs of administering computer passwords.
Financial Transactions
Identity theft is the fastest-growing white-collar crime. A leading solution is the
deployment of Biometrics to authenticate personal identity in order to safeguard financial
transactions. Applications include the use of Biometrics to access ATM's, conduct on-line
banking, and authenticate identity at point-of-sale in retail.
Health Care
Biometrics can be a matter of life and death in health care. Biometrics can establish
personal identity from the moment patients enter the care of a physician or medical
facility, and that identity can be transmitted accurately and securely throughout the health
care system. Biometrics are used to ensure that only authorized medical personnel can
access sensitive hospital facilities, such as nurseries, medication and pharmaceutical
storage, and operating rooms, to see to it that prescribed medications are delivered to the
proper patients, and to safeguard the privacy of patients' medical records by assuring
that only authorized personnel can view them. Increasing concern about reliable patient
and practitioner identification, and HIPPA compliance is driving increased use of
Biometric security in healthcare.
Facilities
Entering facilities and conducting transactions of all sorts, from attending a professional
football game to cashing a check, increasingly depend on establishing identity quickly
and accurately. Biometrics increasingly help guarantee personal identity, through
enrolled user programs, biometrically-enabled documents and smart cards, personal authentication
devices, cell phones and other digital equipment, and scanners placed at
fixed points of service.
Consumers
Identity theft, child protection and safety when using PCs and the Internet, and secure
encryption of data and documents are all areas of significant concern for individuals.
Biometric solutions address these concerns in unique, powerful and compelling
ways.