Commercial biometrics system continues to show growth in years to come. The CAGR for the global biometrics system market is reported at an impressive 16.3% and the main factor for this prediction comes from strong support by the government worldwide to embrace biometrics system deployment in departments and organizations. The increasing demand for better security to combat unauthorized access and attendance fraud is also another factor contributing to the growth. The fact that biometrics is suitable and applicable to varied sectors which includes government, military, transport, logistics, safety & security, healthcare, banking, and so forth, will definitely continue to contribute in the growth as well. Adoption of the biometrics market in smartphone, PCs, and banks also helps to propel the growth of the biometrics market.

Based on the top findings of the IBM Security’s new “Future of Identity Study,” having surveyed nearly 4,000 adults around the globe, Biometrics is becoming mainstream. The study found that 67% of respondents are comfortable using biometrics authentication today, while 87 percent say they’ll be comfortable with these technologies in the near future. And, Millennials are moving beyond passwords. While 75 percent of millennials (respondents between the ages of 20 and 36) are comfortable using biometrics today, less than half are still using complex passwords and 41 percent reuse passwords to access numerous accounts. Older generations showed more care with password creation but were less inclined to adopt biometrics and multi-factor authentication. (Reference: https://securityintelligence.com/new-ibm-study-consumers-weigh-in-on-biometrics-authentication-and-the-future-of-identity/)

The rosy outlook on biometrics has provided industry players with a promising future, however, complacency has no place in this competitive market. For a brand to stay relevant, it needs to elevate the offerings in order to serve the demands of the current and future market. Due to the growing demands from the government sector, it’s a pressing matter for manufacturers to start offering mammoth-capacity options or solutions to fulfill the huge requirements of the projects. And, with these gigantic-sized government projects, the accompanying solution has to cater to the large requirements and perform at its best or risk major hiccups in its implementation. In addition, in other industries, employee mobility is becoming a norm, and the mounting adoption of mobile solutions in the market has created new demands on features such as data centralization, flexible system operation, real-time data & reports, fast respond, additional mobile apps for mobility and the list of requirements is growing. Therefore, geared towards the future, TimeTec will be launching the Face ID X with bigger capacity and better performance to fulfill a larger installation, and on top, TimeTec has been preaching cloud since 2014 in preparation for the incoming demands for flexible and subscription-based solutions. 

TimeTec TA caters for cloud-based time attendance solution for the workforce that offers not only integration with FingerTec biometrics, but it is also loaded with other clocking options such as GPS clocking, Wifi clocking, Beacon clocking and NFC for a versatile attendance clocking system. TimeTec TA is gaining traction in the market due to its effectiveness, affordability and the addition of its mobile solution that comes with the system as a value-added feature. TimeTec TA elevates biometrics solution to another level which enables an array of possibilities in the deployment. 

For access control, TimeTec Access, a mobile authentication cloud-based door access system, is THE solution. With the combination of biometrics, IoT hardware, and cloud solution, TimeTec Access will enable more effective management of access control straight from any Web Browser and operation through Smartphone App. The implementation of TimeTec Access with biometrics will provide companies with remote monitoring ability and instant data & report at all times, and in a long run improves the ROI for the overall door access management.

Biometrics is here to stay but in order to stay relevant and forward-looking, a brand has to provide a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and be able to satisfy the current requirements and more. Explore www.fingertec.com to find out more. 

Biometrics technology measures physical and behavioral characteristics to verify an individual’s identity and the patterns can be anything from fingerprint, facial, voice, palm print, and voice recognition. According to a report by Report Linker, global biometrics market stood at $12.84 billion in 2016 and is projected to reach $29.41 billion by the end of 2022. The increase in biometrics use is observed due to its adoption in an array of recent solutions which include mobile payment, online banking, immigration services, IoT, wearable devices, on top of the existing workforce management, e-Government processes and many more. In general, biometrics-based technology has been largely accepted by the general public due to its feasibility/affordability, and fingerprint technology leads the way by 91% market share as reported by French research firm Yale which finds that fingerprint-based biometrics dominated the $4.45 billion global biometrics market in 2016. Biometrics Technology Improves Staff Efficiency Biometrics-based technology such as fingerprint verification and facial recognition has been proven to be user-friendly and more reliable than other verification methods such as cards and password systems, and it was introduced to the workforce management system to streamline the collection of attendance data from manual to automated, in addition to some value-added advantages. Hence, the number of biometrics technology deployment as an authentication method for workforce management solutions has increased tremendously over the last 20 years for one simple yet crucial objective of any company: to improve bottom line profitability with better workforce management. Biometrics Technology Automates Data Collection Employees are hired for their different skill sets and this applies to any corporation, organization or government department. Therefore, it’s important for a workforce management system to be able to quantify the amount and types of labor needed to accomplish certain jobs on a daily or hourly basis. By installing biometrics solution that ties to the correct scheduling, employee pay class, and work codes, data collection can be done automatically and accurately thus saving the company not only money but a lot of time as well. With biometrics-based technology, employees can move fluidly throughout the day based on their job tasks or schedule, yet the management doesn’t lose control of the most important matter, time and task performed. Biometrics Prevent Time Theft Time theft at work is common and is causing companies annual lost in the billions. Some employees steal time intentionally and some don’t even realize that they are doing it because they always fail to see the value of 10-15 minutes extra break a day to the company’s bottom line profitability. Time theft at work happens when an employer has to pay a salary for the work hours that the employee hasn’t even served. For example, if you have a staff making $10 an hour and he has an average short of 2 hour weekly, that adds up to $960 a year of lost time and company money, and that number could simply multiply if there is no effective solution being placed to curb it. Biometrics is designed to measure the features of the body that are unique to each person. They offer greater accuracy in attendance whereby it eliminates “buddy punching” occurrences automatically. Higher ROI with Biometrics With all the advantages it brings, biometrics is definitely going strong for workforce management system, because obviously, biometrics promotes ease of use, accuracy, and efficiency way past its investment value, and as we are looking into the future of cloud solutions, AI and big data, there’s no better system that can capture accurate identity of an individual as good as biometrics.

FingerTec is a global brand in Biometrics for workforce management and door access solution. We offer a range of fingerprint, facial recognition and card products suitable for any type of office and all our hardware comes complimentary with powerful time management software and door access management software. For cloud solutions for time attendance, leave management and many more, visit TimeTec.

Unimodal biometrics, such as fingerprint technology, face recognition technology, voice recognition technology has been around in the market for quite sometimes serving diverse industries in various applications. Broadly, unimodal biometrics delivers a high degree of accuracy and authenticity to satisfy customer requirements. Nevertheless, and this runs true to all unimodal biometrics, none of the biometrics technology provides a 100% guarantee of user acceptance. Usually, there is a small degree of incompatibility arise due to variance in ones’ biometrics traits explained by the FAR (False Acceptance Rate) and FRR (False Rejection Rate) of each device. 

Even though the percentage of user non-acceptance in unimodal biometrics is very low, it poses an inconvenience to organizations that have to deal with it because as a whole, everybody wants a system that can cater to everybody. There were rare cases of black-henna-ed North African women who couldn’t register their fingerprints because the dark henna covered the characteristic of a fingerprint such as ridges, pores, arches, and making it impossible for the scanner to differentiate those traits from a fingerprint. Some more examples of fingerprint that is hard to register are those of the elderly people, as well as individuals who handle abrasive materials that ruin the traits of their fingerprints. On top, fingers that are too large or too small, dirty fingerprints, cut and damaged fingerprints also could pose some challenges during verification. 

Apart from the fingerprint quality, another matter of concern is the device’s operation. As some workers need to work in an environment that does not want them to have contact with devices, a contactless solution is an answer. Mechanics with dirty hands, cooks, servers, factory workers, employers who want to maintain the longevity of the hardware and etc., and this is where multimodal biometrics come handy. Multimodal biometrics is not meant for users to have two biometrics methods in one system just for the sake of having more, it works to complement one biometrics’ deficit and ultimately to provide users with convenience. 

Multimodal biometrics refers to the use of a combination of two or more biometric modalities in a verification/identification system for improvement of performance over the individual systems either to work together as a multifactor solution or to allow a multitude of authentication options. The multimodal biometrics can be used separately for different users or you can choose to register few methods for one person to tighten verification process. Some workers could be assigned to only fingerprint verification method and some others can only use face, while another group is given verification combination such as fingerprint first followed by face or the other way around. Besides biometrics, multimodal also allows combinations of biometrics with a password, biometrics with a PIN or/and biometrics and card. 

Multimodal biometrics devices like FingerTec Face ID 2 is gaining popularity fast because of the added advantages it brings to the consumer. The price of multimodal biometrics is slightly on the higher side as compared to unimodal biometrics but the extra dollars invested are negligible with the features that it offers. 

Read more about Face ID 2 and its deployment stories in FingerTec Newscenter.