Using biometric technology, specifically fingerprint identification systems, has been a standard feature in access control systems and the time and attendance market has adopted this technology to manage every employee’s productivity and employer’s monthly remuneration expenses. The reasons for this may be varied, however it boils down to being able to identify the user and not just verifying that an access token has permission.
Card swapping, buddy clocking, card cloning, sharing of access pins and phishing schemes to duplicate or steal access tokens were a thing of the past as biometric data, specifically fingerprint data, was unique to the user and could not be shared, cloned or phished.
COVID-19 presented the access control and time and attendance market segment with new and unique challenges. Fingerprint biometric systems suddenly became ‘verboten’ in the belief that COVID-19 can survive and spread on surfaces and these systems, which represented a common point of physical contact with a surface, thereby increasing the possibility of transmission of the virus. End users and employers reverted to using older and outdated proximity card technology which in turn resulted in previous issues of buddy clocking, cloning and use of stolen cards resurfacing.
This is a less than ideal situation and the solution would be to provide affordable contactless biometric technologies in the form of facial recognition devices.
Trac-Tech introduces UFace
Trac-Tech has secured the distribution rights to the UFace range of contactless biometric facial recognition and identity management IoT devices. UFace terminals provide for 99,9% facial recognition of faces, even in harsh backlight conditions, at a competitive price.
This is done by using both IR and visible light technology backed by high-gain Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) cameras and a top-three rated facial recognition extraction and matching algorithm as per the FDDB (Facial Detection Dataset and Benchmark) that caters for partial mask detection for COVID-19 safety applications.
A variant is available with infrared thermal temperature measurement and full mask detection capability where the user’s temperature is logged within the software to be fully COVID-19 compliant. All the devices have ‘liveness’ detection as an anti-spoofing countermeasure, a 1 000 000 transaction log and operate on a Linux OS.
Enrolment of users can be done either on one of the devices in the system and then distributed via LAN to other devices, or enrolment can be done via three images of the user uploaded to the software suite and then distributed to the various devices in the system. This makes visitor management a lot easier for those responsible.
The UFace LAN client software suite is web-based multiuser LAN software that allows for basic access control functionality, user management, template enrolment and management, terminal configuration and management as well as access control/mask/temperature logging. It features an interactive user GUI with real-time dashboard and alarm notifications. It uses a MySQL database that allows for third party T&A; integration. The database and communication protocol are encrypted.
UFace terminals are available in three distinct series for different sized deployments and applications:
Series 5 – the most basic UFace terminals aimed at the small/medium enterprise market segment. It features a 5-inch touchscreen IPS LCD, 10 000 user database, partial mask detection, liveness detection and a built-in 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader. Facial detection is up to 4 metres. This unit is ideal for internal deployments in offices
Series 7 – this series has two variants and is aimed at the medium enterprise market segment.
• The first features a 7-inch touchscreen IPS LCD, 10 000 user database, partial mask detection, liveness detection, built-in 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader and an IP54 rating. Facial detection is up to 4 metres. This unit is ideal for warehouses or similar environments.
• The second features a 7-inch IPS LCD, 10 000 user database, partial mask detection, built-in 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader and is installed in an IP66 rated stainless steel housing for pole-mount applications such as speed stiles or entrances. Facial detection is 4+ metres due to a longer focal length lens in the WDR cameras. This unit is aimed at harsh environments such as factories or external applications.
Series 8 – this series consists of three variants and is aimed at the medium/large enterprise market segment or environments requiring specific applications.
• The first features an 8-inch touchscreen IPS LCD, 50 000 user database, partial mask detection, liveness detection, built in 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader and an IP66 rating. Facial detection is up to 4 metres. This unit is aimed at high-traffic areas and would be ideal for external applications due to the IP66 rating.
• The second is a pole-mount variant featuring an 8-inch touchscreen IPS LCD, 50 000 user database, partial mask detection, liveness detection, built-in 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader and an IP66 rating. Facial detection is up to 4 metres. This unit is aimed at applications where the unit needs to be mounted, such as speed stiles or vehicle entry.
• The third unit features an 8-inch touchscreen IPS LCD, 50 000 user database, full mask detection, liveness detection, 13,56 MHz MIFARE card reader, IP66 rating and an infrared thermal temperature measurement module accurate up to +/- 0,2°C, measuring the user’s temperature from their forehead. This unit is aimed at applications where specific COVID-19 requirements exist.
The above units are complemented by the UFace LAN Client software suite or can be deployed to third-party access control systems via the Wiegand interface.
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