I think this is a repeat, looks familiar, published today... Identix is mentioned.
Security concerns boost biometric
ID systems
Tools cut losses related to fraud
By Joseph Menn. Special to the Tribune. Joseph Menn
is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, a Tribune
newspaper
Published December 3, 2001
Supermarket owner Rafik Shuman cashes customers' checks at
his East Palo Alto, Calif., store, a service that brings in many
shoppers. But fraud cost him as much as $20,000 a month.
So Shuman bought a computer system made by BioPay, a year-old company based in Herndon,
Va. It takes fingerprints and pictures from customers cashing checks and compares their records
with what it says is the country's largest commercial database of fingerprints.
Installed in April, the BioPay system has reduced Shuman's check-cashing losses to only a
couple of hundred dollars a month.
"I had a couple of kids come in and give their fingerprints, and as soon as they saw me typing on
the computer they ran away," Shuman said. Another time, the system flagged a group of
teenagers who had recently cashed fake payroll checks from a nearby e-mail marketer and were
trying to do it again. "It's fantastic," he said.
A combination of technological advances, falling prices and increased demand is moving a
variety of so-called biometric devices--which use unique biological data to verify an individual's
identity--from the world of James Bond movies into a range of businesses and government
agencies.
Hospitals trying to safeguard patient records, schools wanting to monitor student Internet surfing
and city agencies keeping closer tabs on licensed cab drivers all are buying systems that identify
people through fingerprints, iris patterns or voice recognition.
Sales of biometric equipment were growing before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Since then,
financial institutions, big buildings and a raft of government agencies have been scrambling to
beef up security.
"A lot of deployments that were on the back burner have moved forward," said Jake Hong, an
associate at International Biometric Group, which has done consulting work on identification
technologies for companies such as Lockheed Martin Corp., Intel Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
and Visa International Inc.
Sales of systems up 60%
Market researcher IDC projects that biometrics sales will climb 60 percent this year, to $190
million, and soar to nearly $900 million by 2005.
It's not clear which companies will benefit most. Many of the companies are small or have shaky
financial histories because they invested heavily either in Internet-related services or in
developing systems that until recently were riddled with bugs.
But industries are starting to gravitate toward several authentication methods, hardware and
software vendors are linking up and big computer-makers are placing their bets by including
identification sensors in more machines. Such developments will lead to more widespread
adoption of biometrics.
One of the biggest forces behind the surge in biometrics has an unlikely origin: federal regulations
on medical patient privacy that are still being drawn up.
Part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 called for fines of as much
as $50,000 and jail time for medical or insurance workers who allow unauthorized peeks at
patient records.
Many hospitals that post records on their in-house computer networks have to monitor who looks
at each page. With highly mobile workers, some employees log on once and allow others to use
the same terminal. And different computer programs required distinct passwords, so workers
often forget which password to use and when.
"You wound up with Post-It notes surrounding the monitors and passwords on pieces of paper
under keyboards, in drawers, things like that," said Steve Raynes, manager of audit and
compliance at Scott & White Hospital in Temple, Texas.
The old system made accountability impossible, and it was expensive. Of about 8,000 monthly
calls to the technical support line, costing an average of $35 each, about 60 percent were related
to forgotten passwords or other access issues.
The hospital and its 18 clinics, which are affiliated with Texas A&M University, decided to fix all
the big problems at once. It became one of the first to adopt a fingerprint-access system that
recognizes each user and stores all passwords, automatically giving each person access to the
appropriate applications.
Scott & White Hospital has spent $1.5 million on the project and installed fingerprint readers from
Identix Inc. of Los Gatos, Calif., on 4,000 desktop computers. The hospital is planning to roll out
1,000 laptops soon. The system is fast and provides clear evidence of who looked at what. And
technical support calls have dropped by half, saving about $140,000 a month.
Fingerprint systems favored
For now, fingerprint systems have a clear advantage over eye, face and voice-based systems,
buyers and analysts say. Although not technologically superior to iris scanning, they have been
around longer, are trusted by the government and are generally less expensive.
Law enforcement aside, various forms of fingerprint technology account for half the remaining
market, according to International Biometric. Face scanning, hand scanning and iris scanning rank
after that.
The biggest maker of electronic fingerprint gear is Identix, with about half the market. Founded in
1982, the company introduced a large electronic imaging system in 1989. Ten years later, it
brought out a fist-size reader that attaches to personal computers.
Compaq Computer Corp., Dell Computer Corp. and Toshiba Corp. then started offering the
gadgets and more recently began incorporating fingerprint sensors into the body of their
more-expensive laptops.
Early sales weren't stellar. But since Sept. 11, all three computer-makers have doubled their
orders from Identix to make fingerprint-enabled laptops, said Sunday Lewis, chief marketing
officer at Identix.
Acer Corp. began marketing fingerprint-reading laptops--which sell for $2,000 or more--nine
months ago. In the past few weeks, the Taiwan-based company has been inundated with
requests to demonstrate them, especially by federal agencies and vendors in the Washington,
D.C., area, said David Lee, Acer's U.S. director of product management. Microsoft Corp. has
helped move things along by including biometric interfaces in its Windows 2000 operating system.
Identix has about 60 pilot projects each at health-care companies and financial institutions, up
from fewer than 10 combined a year ago, company officials said.
The company could use the business. Although Identix is one of the most established companies
in the market, it has lost money in each of the last three years, on about $80 million in annual
revenue.
Most of the major biometric systems have made dramatic improvements in accuracy, early users
say. At the American Hospital Association, which has been experimenting with five types of
fingerprint sensors, "it used to be one of 10 times you tried it, it would work. Now it's 9 out of 10,"
association research analyst Paul Janacek said.
There still are problems with reading the fingers of construction workers and others whose
hands take a beating on the job, and those of some older people whose skin is softer. And in
areas where everyone wears gloves, Scott & White Hospital is leaning toward using iris
scanning.
The price of fingerprint readers has fallen by more than half to about $100 for a stand-alone
device or about $200 for a keyboard. Iris scanners have fallen much more, from many hundreds
of dollars to about $200.
Iridian focuses on iris scans
Iris scanning is dominated by one company with many patents, Iridian Technologies Inc. of
Moorestown, N.J. Funded in part by General Electric Co., Iridian is planning to sell stock to the
public soon. Its cameras can take a picture from 10 inches away and are being used to grant
employees access to work areas at airports and to desktop computers in other industries.
Smart cards that incorporate fingerprint data also are booming, helped by Defense Department
contracts. Precise Biometrics AB of Sweden, which recently sold a license to cover 10,000
fingerprint readers, is one of the companies making multipurpose cards for both doorways and
computer keyboards.
Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune
chicagotribune.com
steve |
