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Biometrics: from children's eating habits at school to mining

Facing the children obesity epidemic, parents and educators in the US are utilising biometric technology to help monitor and inhibit kids’ unhealthy lunch purchases at school.

In the US over 12-million children are overweight and experts predict that many obese children will not outlive their parents due to their unhealthy diet associated with the high consumption of fat and sugar.

Fingerprint biometric readers linked with POS systems at schools and a home Internet connection are deployed, enabling parents to keep an eye on the diet of their children in school.

Under the system, parents can review the purchase history of their children via the Internet for a specified period of time and restrict the food menus that their children can choose.

Biometrics is successfully taking over the functions of traditional security systems such as swipe cards, and in tracking and access control applications.

Fingerprint technology has replaced the use of access cards in certain environments and is being used for access in the home and office.

But fingerprint technology can be unreliable where the fingerprint is abraded or the person works in damp conditions. The shape of the finger is altered when wet, which can also make the technology unreliable at times.

In environments such as mining and farming, an alternate solution is needed.

In these cases, face recognition may be an alternative. The first round of biometric face recognition systems presented limitations in their ability to accurately recognise faces. The initial systems were inaccurate. But with advances in technology, systems do exist nowadays that provide a high level of reliability.

Most miners use swipe cards for time and attendance, but the technology can be open to abuse. Biometric fingerprint access is also not viable for miners, and facial recognition systems in the past have only been suited to people with lighter skins. This was purely a technical issue because less light is reflected from people with darker skins, which made facial recognition systems not viable.

The latest face recognition solutions, however, overcome these limitations and successfully address the time and attendance as well as security challenges mines are currently experiencing.

The cost benefits of being able to track miners underground by controlling access and identifying illegal miners are enormous.

The biometrics industry has made great strides in recent years. But it still remains the customer's responsibility to make the correct decision as to the technology best suited to their business.

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