Saturday, January 24, 2009

Biometrics testing and keyless lock


Testing biometrics or biometrics verification

Biometrics is a branch of biology that studies biological phenomena and observations by means of statistical analysis. Biometric testing or biometrics verification is any means by which a person can be uniquely identified by evaluating one or more distinguishing biological traits or biometric characteristics. Biometric characteristics include the shape of the body, fingerprints, face recognition, hand geometry, iris recognition, signature, keystroke dynamics and voice recognition. The use of signature in signing of cheques, agreements, etc., is already widely used and familiar to everybody. Most people will remember those James Bond type movies where access to some high security areas uses iris recognition.

Keyless biometrics fingerprint locks

keyless biometric fingerprint deadbolt
Keyless lock like the one in the photo above using biometrics recognition (fingerprint recognition) is now available and is longer confined to James Bond films. Looking at it, one would expect that the deadbolt must be actuated by a motor which obviously must be powered by electrical power. Now that such keyless lock can be yours for very little, would you want such
keyless lock
in your home? What happens when there is a power failure? Would you get locked out or locked in?

In my country, there was a time when pensioners have to append their fingerprint in a claim form to claim their pensions. There were cases where pensioners died and their relatives chopped off the fingers of dead pensioners to enable them to continue receiving the pensions. It would not be too far fetched that those wanting access to your home may chop off your fingers as keys to the keyless biometric fingerprint deadbolt.

And how about photocopy of your fingerprint? Can photocopy of a fingerprint be the key to open the keyless fingerprint recognition lock? I would love to test that if such locks are made available to me.

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