News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

Check fingerprints and blood alcohol at the same time?

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Lumidigm Inc. delivered a report to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department in New Mexico on whether the company’s multispectral fingerprint technology could also be used to check for alcohol in an individual’s blood as well as do a biometric check.

Lumidigm’s technology uses multispectral analysis to produce biometric fingerprint images. Biometric data collection is not the only possible use of multispectral technology. Lumidigm sensors can potentially be configured to collect additional information, such as the presence of alcohol. “The potential implications for law enforcement personnel as it relates to DWI enforcement is very encouraging,” said Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White.


Lumidigm executives also say there are applications for this kind of technology outside of law enforcement. “Within a couple of years there will be wide adoption of biometrically-enabled security and personalization devices in automobiles,” says Matthew Ennis, vice president of business development at Lumidigm. “We have an advantage in this marketplace because of the ability of our fingerprint sensors to work well in the same extreme conditions where automobiles are used.” Lumidigm believes biometrically enabled alcohol sensing in vehicles would be sold as an option to fleet managers. [end] 

Siemens along with the University of Graz, Austria have created an RFID-enabled blood monitoring system, according to AZoSensors.

The system consists of a temperature sensor, a chip and a battery. RFID labels contain information about the blood and help regulate the complete cooling series by using temperature sensors. The sensor remains in the same position throughout the entire transportation system, including the centrifuge, and is strong enough to endure centrifugal processes at 5000 times the acceleration of gravity.

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DAILY RFID, a Chinese RFID/EPC developer, has rolled out RFID Stickers designed for harsher environments. Operating in either 125KHz or 13.56MHz, the adhesive disc tag is resistant to immersion in salt water and is dust proof.

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Two Central Arkansas public libraries are currently in the process of converting to and installing an RFID-enabled check system, according to a local news report.

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Alien Technology recently partnered with Barcelona, Spain-based integrator Aifos Solutions for the implementation of an ultra high frequency RFID based hemo-derivative blood bag tracking application at the Blood and Tissue Bank of Balearic Islands.

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The Frisco Public Library, Frisco, Tex., reopened last week providing a faster way to check out and check in books and media materials. Volunteers worked for ten days while the library was closed to update more than 145,000 books, DVDs and CDs.

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Spain’s Balearic Islands Blood and Tissue Bank is using a combination of Nordic ID hand held readers with an RFID system from Barcelona-based Aifo Solutions to track some 30,000 blood bags.

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