It is important that the market is not influenced by the biometric technology hype, and fully understands its true significance and the real advantages it offers, says Liam Terblanche CIO at Accsys.
He says before adopting biometric technology, organisations should make an assessment of their environments in order to address key requirements like access control.
Terblanche says that biometric technology cannot simply replace passwords in all applications without some serious thought.
“The most important reason why I do not see biometrics replacing all password applications in identity and access management is because of the permanence of biometric characteristics. If someone can hack a network and discover my password, I can simply change it.
“But if that same person hacks into data traffic, already an existing technology, and intercepts my fingerprint templates, what then?” he asks.
Infrastructure needed
He is also of the view that biometric solutions require technology and infrastructure to store and retrieve biological identity traits like fingerprints, iris profiles and voice templates.
“Some people simply do not have fingerprints. Glaucoma and other eye defects and diseases make the use of iris scans non-universal. Facial occlusions, including wearing a Hijāb or Niqāb have been shown to impede the success of face recognition, for example,” he adds.
“We are still a few years away from centralising one shared platform that will replace the use of passwords in a global environment,” he notes.
Terblanche also says biometrics is being constantly developed and is now being used in a number of creative ways, most notably to control access to companies and to address issues such as 'buddy clocking', the fraudulent practices of time theft and impact on resources within the HR environment.
“Mounting evidence suggest that more decision makers are seeing biometric-based technology as a credible, cost effective and more secure access control infrastructure,” he says.
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