Mark Hendricks illustrates how biometrics, the measuring of body parts for identification, can be used to help to reduce cheating on time cards. Mr. Hendricks states that his own business was hit by unethical time keeping practices that cost him money. Many of his employees were documenting time that they didn’t work, and as a result he was paying for work that was not completed. In an attempt to reduce the amount of money that his unethical employees were scamming from him, he implemented a biometrics devise into his time-and-attendance system. A thumbprint scanner was used when employees punched in and out for the day. This eliminated the possibilities of friends punching in workers who were running late, or who were not going to show up for work at all. This biometrics implementation helped to not only decrease doctored time cards, but it also helped to improve attendance.
While the future use of biometrics in business and other applications was over exaggerated by the media right after the event of September 11, biometrics really do have a logical place in business applications.
For example biometrics such as fingerprint scanning are very effective security devices for small to medium sized firms for time and attendance applications, like in the example above. While biometrics have already been implemented in a number of organizations and technology devices, there are limitations that inhibit biometrics from being applied effectively to larger organizations. Errors, abuse of biometric information in databases, and non-compatibility with other systems are currently retarding the spread and development of biometric security devices in larger organizations. However, researchers confirm that biometrics are being developed that are more effective and more user-friendly, and as a result the annual revenue generated by biometrics is predicted to rise form its current rate of $1.2 billion dollars to $4.6 billion by 2008.