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Biometric channel making an impression

The name Ideco is synonymous with biometrics in South Africa and with the Sagem brand. This BEE company has arguably established itself as the leading biometrics solutions and service supplier in the country.

As part of its continued expansion, Ideco launched a distribution company to spearhead the growth of an effective channel to take the Sagem product line further into the South African market. Heading up the distributor, named Ideco Biometric Security Solutions, is Gary Jones.

He has been associated with Sagem for many years, initially running his own company and representing the product in South Africa. He was involved in the digitisation of the SAPS fingerprint database and eventually migrated to Ideco.

Jones spent the first couple of years at Ideco Biometric Security Solutions (IBSS) identifying the best channel partners to take the Sagem brand forward. He says many of the partners selected were experts in other fields where a biometric solution could be beneficial - such as the Kronos Time and Attendance team at Bytes. In the IT field, partners like Business Connexion were selected because of their existing expertise and market penetration. Other partners include traditional security operations such as Norbain and ADI.

"While we want to see the Sagem brand in every corner of the country and beyond, we are strict in the appointment of channel partners as we want to ensure the quality and reliability of the Sagem brand remains intact," explains Jones. "We do not want unskilled installers giving Sagem or Ideco a bad name."

At the same time, IBSS was also very flexible with its partners. It did not force any investment or commitment from these companies and was even open to having them represent other biometric brands as well.

"We did not insist on exclusivity, but a couple of years down the line and all our partners have chosen to represent Sagem exclusively," he adds. "The result is that we have made South Africa the largest Sagem customer in the world."

Many people think South Africa is behind in the technology game, but when it comes to biometrics the country is at the leading edge. The government has standardised on Sagem, for example, with SAPS managing about seven million criminal records with the technology, nine million pensioners being paid every month and another 30 million records at Home Affairs based on Sagem technology.

More applications coming

To date, most biometric solutions have been found in access control or time and attendance applications, which are a perfect fit. However, Jones believes we are about to see biometrics expanding its scope of influence simply because of the added security a fingerprint can add. New biometric applications we will be seeing in the next 12 months include common tasks such as gym access, logging onto PCs, health services and financial transactions.

It is easy enough to lose a card or to have someone copy down your PIN number, but they cannot copy your fingerprint. And this fact makes adding biometrics to banking, insurance and healthcare, for example, a solid business decision that will save companies money in the long term.

Of course the field of biometrics is not without challenges, even with good technology. One of the challenges Jones believes will be dealt with in the coming years is that of the quality of biometric data.

"There is an increased awareness and understanding in the market of the importance and impact of the quality of biometric data - the principle of garbage in garbage out is particularly applicable to the field of biometrics," he says. "The quality of data can easily be influenced by factors such as physiological, behavioural, cultural and environmental issues."

Jones says the next five years will see improved standards and processes being developed to manage the collection and storage of biometric data. "This is essential to the integrity and performance of biometric systems, as well as in gaining much broader acceptance and trust in the market."

As a company, Ideco has already handled hundreds of millions of fingerprints and is therefore in a prime position to offer its experience in refining processes and technologies to where biometric providers can guarantee clients the highest quality of enrolled data. And with the right combination of technology and reliable data, there is almost no end to the potential applications that can be biometrically enabled.

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