Biometrics
Author:
Daisy Downes
Earlier this year, St Andrews College in Blackrock, Co Dublin, rolled out a pilot project to replace traditional student registration with a biometric solution.
TruancyGuard, developed by Adrenalin, uses a combination of fingerprints and access codes to record pupils as they enter and leave the school premises.
Arthur Godsil, headmaster of St Andrew's College, is trialling the project on a class from the second year. “Every morning it is the responsibility of the form teacher to register all pupils. This is a time consuming but necessary process as for safety reasons we need to know the whereabouts of our students at all times. However, if we can place the responsibility of registration directly on the pupils, this will free the individual form teachers' time to provide greater pastoral care to the students at that time.
“Aside from safety reasons, registration also notifies if students have not arrived in school or have arrived late. TruancyGuard is set up to automatically notify parents or guardians via text message if they do not appear in school as expected,” Mr Godsil says.
Meanwhile, Softworks Computing Ltd has launched a solution that allows companies of all sizes to use biometric technology as a secure and accurate means of recording and monitoring employee working hours, without the need for costly and cumbersome plastic cards, paper or passwords.
Softworks has a number of customers using biometric technology as a reliable and easy to use identification/ verification system. Amongst them, Alienware Ltd, based in Athlone, Co Westmeath, is a manufacturer of high-performance computer desktop and mobile systems. Alienware’s EMEA Vice President, Joe Treacy says one of the main reasons he introduced a Time & Attendance system was to manage the holidays and bonus structures of employees and he opted for biometrics over a traditional swipe card because, as he puts it, “employees have no excuse for forgetting to log in or out; people aren't inclined to lose fingers as easily as they might lose a card; also cards can get damaged so we don't face the added cost of replacing missing cards.”
For organisations considering a new Time and / or Attendance Solution, it is important to review the way identity is recorded. Traditional punch card technologies have been around for more than 100 years but these are not always foolproof and, as a result, ‘buddy punching’ i.e. employees / students clocking in and out for each other, can have a negative impact on managing payable hours and student attendance ratings.
But companies considering the introduction of biometrics technology in the workplace need to be aware of the data protection implications. The Data Protection Commisisoner has produced a guidance document which is available online at www. dataprotection.ie. Biometrics in the Workplace is intended to encourage employers to consider the need for a system and then to assess the privacy impact of different systems.
Before an employer installs a biometric system, the Data Protection Commissioner recommends that a documented privacy impact assessment is carried out. An employer who properly conducts such an assessment is less likely to introduce a system that contravenes the provisions of the Data Protection Acts 1988 & 2003.