News and insight into biometric identification and authentication

UK construction site goes with biometric turnstile

Friday, August 29, 2008

Clugston Construction Ltd has installed a biometric turnstile at one of its sites for time and attendance. The biometric Site Access Turnstile is supplied by UKB International Ltd has been installed at the $91 million Derwenthaugh EcoPark site in Gateshead, where Clugston is building a steam autoclave recycling facility for client Graphite Resources.

Workers, sub-contractors and suppliers who have undergone the Clugston health and safety check are registered by having their fingerprint scanned. The biometric system identifies minutiae points on the finger which are converted to data, encrypted and stored for future comparison. No actual fingerprints are stored and the reporting data is held only by Clugston.


Once registered, workers simply scan their fingerprint to gain access to, or leave the site. The system admits one worker at a time, thus eliminating the practice of ‘Buddy punching’ clocking in workmates who leave early or arrive late.

The multi-spectral scanner reads both fingerprint and sub dermal ridges making it difficult to ‘Spoof’ with a fake fingerprint. Both scanner and housing are ruggedized and able to operate in a wide range of temperatures while being resistant to water, dust and dirt. The scanner can read a fingerprint through grease, dirt, paint or latex gloves. [end] 

A new biometric-secured external hard drive is being offered by LaCie, a developer of computer hardware and accessories, called The LaCie Rugged Safe.

The hard drive, which comes in either 500 gigabyte or 1 terabyte, also touts a rugged construction and AES 128-bit encryption. The biometric aspect of the device requires a fingerprint swipe of one of the up to ten authorized users to access any of the data contained on it.  

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Human Recognition Systems, a developer of biometric solutions, has partnered with Thales to develop technology for the UK’s INSTINCT-Technology Demonstrator 2 (TD2) Airport Security Program. The INSTINCT-TD2 program is conceived in hopes of developing, trialing and showcasing the next step in airport security technology solutions by having the government work closely with private industry.

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Ghana’s major electronic clearing and payment system could provide enough space and communication capabilities to enable adding new purposes for removing ghost payrollers, according to a Peace FM Online article.

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SmartMetric, a developer of portable biometric solutions, has announced that its biometric activated data card can now be used to contain full medical history and health records on the individual. The card, called the SmartMetric Data Card, is a standard sized card that has the capability of holding multiple pages of data as well as being inaccessible without the holder first scanning his fingerprint on the card itself.

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Tool hire firm Speedy has partnered with biometric technology developer Human Resources Systems (HRS) in order to create a biometric solution for physical access control on construction sites, according to a Cranes Today article. The solution, called MSite, utilizes either hand geometry or iris recognition in conjunction with full height turnstiles to restrict or allow individual access to a protected area.

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The Palos Heights School District 128 in Chicago is using GPS technology to track its students allowing the district to keep up with the student–when he or she first entered the school bus and when the student exited the district’s care.

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