The widely used fingerprint biometric attendance system has been suspended by a lot of government agencies, and private firms after the coronavirus scare. I am share some top 10 disadvantages of biometric systems
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Non changeable Physical Traits:
If the biometric modalities work with physical traits such as fingerprint, iris, palm vein, etc. We all have only a pair of eyes; a certain number of fingerprints, and other body parts that are unchangeable. We can reset a password, but we never can change our fingerprints or retina, these are fixed. Our biometric data is stored in respective government’s databases or companies who enable such services.
Can they guarantee that these data will never be hacked or stolen from the server? Unfortunately, it is already happening around us. There are news about data breach of billions of Indians’ private data from the Aadhaar database. A large-scale breach took place at the Federal Government Office of Personal Management in US where 5.6 million workers’ fingerprints were stolen in 2015. You can change your password if it is stolen, but you have no option to change your fingerprint in anyway.
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Rate of Error
Biometric attendance machines have two types of errors, False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR). FAR is happens when the device accepts an unauthorized person, anf FRR comes into the picture when authorized person is rejected.
The error rate is 1% that means an organiztion with 20,000 employee, will get an error attendance of approox 200 employees. -
Delay
Biometric attendances devices take more time to mark the attendance and causes a long queue of workers in the morning and in the evening. -
Infection Carrier
Coronavirus soreads from human touch. If an employee touch the biometric attendance system with coronavirus and touch her surface, she is susceptible to getting infected from coronavirus. Everyone share germs on biometric attendance management system. -
Dfficulty in Scanning
Scanning iris, finger prints are tough to scan. Eyelashes, eyelids, lens and reflections from the cornea can be difficult to scan and if finger is injured again a finger print scanner won't be able to scan the fingers. -
Physical Challenges
Unfortunately many employees have physical challenges due to lost or damaged physical parts. Thus it is challenging to get them involved in the enrollment process. -
Environmental Challenges:
Under extreme cold or extreme heat, the error rate is also very hight. Thus this pose a challenge for using biometric attendance system.
