How To Prepare For A Biometric System Deployment

Our last article examined the upcoming trends of business premise security in the year 2020. Businesses are to be wary of lenient company security policies as it can lead to serious problems. Because of this, more and more businessmen utilize biometric machines such as fingerprint attendance systems to protect their business sites. If you’re about to implement your biometrics system for attendance and security or simply planning to get one, here’s one step ahead to get you started. Know what corporate leaders should do and how before deploying your biometrics system.

Make the process of your biometric system’s deployment smooth with these tips.

1. Audit your Present Security Infrastructure

Every business has its security infrastructure. To know what kind of biometric system will work best for your company, you have to go through each of your business processes. One way that you can effectively accomplish this is by auditing your present infrastructure. Determine whether the biometric system you want to deploy matches up against your existing security policies.

2. Assess which Biometric Modality Works Best for your Company

While it’s important to audit your current security infrastructure, it’s also crucial that you examine which biometric modality will work best for your business. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to deploying biometric technology. Hence, it’s important to consider carefully what biometric modality suits your company—it can be fingerprint modality, facial recognition modality, iris modality, etc.

As you can see, every biometric modality has its strengths and weaknesses. When you evaluate them individually, you will be able to see which one will work effectively for your company. It’s also important to take note that the effectiveness of your biometric system’s installation is dependent on how and where your technology is used.

3. Utilize Multimodal Biometric Systems

When it comes to implementing good security policies, one of the best practices that you can follow is to never rely on one line of defense. According to experienced IT professionals worldwide, it’s smarter for organizations to create multiple layers of security if they want to ensure their physical and data security. For this reason, it is recommended by experts that business owners make use of multimodal biometric systems in their business sites. With this type of system in place, your organization will be able to overcome the common limitations that are imposed by unimodal biometric systems. One example of this is the technology’s reliance on one biometric trait to verify a person’s identity.

4. Consider Return of Investment

Other than the technical benefits that biometric technology offers, it’s also vital that you consider the return on investment (ROI) you get from the system. If you don’t get your money’s worth when you use a certain technology, you’re pouring money down the drain—and no businessman wants that. For this reason, it’s advised by experts that you quantify your ROI first before you deploy a new biometric system. By doing this, you’ll be able to get the assurance that your biometric technology investment will pay off in the long run.

“FEW OF THE MODALITIES THAT CAN WITHSTAND THE COLD ARE THE RECOGNITION SYSTEMS THAT USE A PERSON’S IRIS AND DNA SAMPLE.”

5. Consider the Climate of your Location

It may not seem like it at first glance, but the factors like temperature, dust accumulation capacity, and humidity can create a huge impact on your biometric technology. Because of this, it’s essential that businessmen take their workspace and office climate into consideration.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s how the climate affects biometric systems:

• Cold Temperature Environment

When your office is located in a cold climate environment, your biometric system must be designed to withstand extended exposure to cold temperatures. If you fail to do this, you will tend to experience operational issues while using this technology.

Aside from the technical issues cold temperatures cause, it can also affect the quality of the system’s biometric sample acquisition. For instance, the cold can cause fingers to get stiff. According to experts, pliable skin is required to get good-quality fingerprints. The cold can cause false rejections on the end-user's end.

A few of the modalities that can withstand the cold are the recognition systems that use a person’s iris and a DNA sample. If you want to use a system that utilizes face modality, you need to see to it that the face recognition lenses are placed in an area with stable temperature. That way, you’ll be able to make sure that it won’t fog up or form condensation.

• Hot Temperature Environment

Just like in severe cold temperatures, extremely hot temperatures also can disrupt biometric technology protocol. That’s why it’s critical to customize your biometric system for this type of environment. According to IT professionals, it’s advisable that the biometric equipment you select can handle extreme heat and operate in bright light. Furthermore, it’s also recommended that the solid-state sensors be shielded from direct and prolonged sunlight.

When you ask experts, they will attest that DNA biometric systems are not suitable for hot temperatures. Long-term exposure to heat can cause DNA to degrade. Hence, it’s discouraged to use this type of system in areas with a hot climate.

• Dusty or Sandy Environment

Apart from cold temperatures and hot temperatures, the excessive accumulation of dust or sand particles can cause several equipment problems. As you can see, dust consists of particles that are undeniably smaller than sand.  They may not seem like a big problem at first, but they can cause interference of moving parts, corrosion, fouling, and increased electrical conductivity when you don’t do anything about it. That’s why if your office is located in a dusty environment, it is recommended that your biometric technology is rugged and resistant to scratches and corrosion.

• Humid Environment

One of the common problems that companies in humid environments often experience is biometric system accuracy degradation. High humidity makes it difficult for fingerprint readers to capture good fingerprints because of its capacity to cause fingers to get wet and saturated. All the while, the moderate to heavy rain the humid brings can affect the accuracy of voice recognition systems because of the background noise it produces. For this reason, it’s essential to select a rugged biometric technology that can withstand high humidity.

6. Examine Budget and Business Needs

When it comes to implementing biometric technology in a company, every good businessman knows how important it is to stay under the allocated budget. Because of this, the importance of examining one’s budget in contrast to the organization’s needs has been emphasized by experts around the world.

Although ensuring data security is a critical responsibility for business owners, it’s important to keep in mind that it shouldn’t come at a price that can put your company out of business. You can do this easily by weighing your business’ cost of operation, deployment, and implementation of biometric access control systems. Furthermore, you can also anticipate the possible maintenance and operation cost necessary in the future.

Aside from helping you understand your company’s security infrastructure better, this also allows you to make sure that you get a good return on investment in the long run. Though that, you’ll be able to become cost-efficient and profitable.

7. Consider Scalability

Before deploying a biometric system in your company, you should see to it that the technology is flexible and adaptable to other systems. That way, you’ll be able to integrate it with other technologies when necessary and eliminate the need to dismantle existing systems. Furthermore, it’s also vital that the biometric system you choose for your company is scalable. By doing that, you’ll be able to give your company the room for growth and make sure that your expansion process will take place smoothly.

8. Determine Company Size

Another way to simplify your biometric system’s deployment process is by identifying your company’s employee population size ahead of time. By doing this, you will be able to determine the type of modality that will work best for your company.

Each modality differs in biometric sample enrollment speed and recognition accuracy. If you ask IT professionals, they will tell you that the palm vein biometric sample is more accurate than a fingerprint sample. However, the palm vein has a bigger template size compared to the fingerprint. Hence, it has been considered that the fingerprint recognition system is more ideal for companies that have a large employee population.

9. Look into Hygiene Issues

Alongside the points mentioned above, it’s also important that you look into the possible hygiene issues that may arise in the long run. Without a doubt, infection control is every business owner’s responsibility. That’s why it’s ideal that you look into the possible hygiene issues you may encounter in the future.

It is undeniable that touching a biometric fingerprint sensor is just as dangerous as touching a doorknob. For this very reason, many organizations today select biometric systems like face and iris scanners to induce less body contact.

10. Know the Legal Issues Associated with Biometrics

There are a lot of legal issues that are associated with the utilization biometric technology—privacy, remediation, and reliability are just a few of them. When you are aware of the existence of these issues, you will be able to gain the insight on which biometric system will work best for your company. Furthermore, you will be able to create well-informed decisions during the process of your biometric system’s installation.

Biometric access control systems are truly reliable when it comes to ensuring your company’s physical and information security. With the expertise of the IT professionals from House of IT, you’ll be able to get the peace of mind that you will acquire the system that can enhance your business’ safety and security. Contact House of IT now to assist you in your biometric system’s deployment.