Identifying individuals using standard authentication practices is quickly phasing out, thanks to rapidly advancing technology like biometrics. While organizations used ID cards or other forms of identification to verify identities, biometrics has been replacing them due to its several benefits when used for identity management.
For starters, with proper identity management, managers can set different access levels for different users, ensuring that sensitive data is accessible only by those that need to work with it. Let’s explore the most common benefits of identity management when biometrics is used to enroll, search, identify and verify individuals.
Top six benefits of identity management with biometrics
Better security
With traditional passwords and other identification methods, there are always security risks and vulnerabilities involved – individuals can forget passwords or breaches might occur where the passwords are available to hackers. However, when biometrics is used for identity management, it ensures that only those registered with their biometrics can access sensitive locations and data. Moreover, there’s no need for individuals to remember passwords – their biometric features are their passwords!
Easier authentication
Even now, several companies utilize the paper-based system for attendance sheets which employees have to sign during clocking in and clocking out. Quite naturally, it’s a tedious process. Moreover, with paper-based systems, an employee can sign on behalf of their colleague, something known as “buddy punching,” which can cost the company significantly.
One of the benefits of identity management with biometrics is that the employee needs to sign in using their biometrics – either with fingerprint, face, iris, or any other modality. Since biometrics is non-transferable, there’s virtually no chance of buddy punching. Moreover, it saves a lot of time and is more straightforward – all the information is automatically recorded for further use and verification.
Unmatched accuracy, especially with multimodal biometrics
While using a single modality has its advantages, the benefits of identity management with multimodal biometrics are unmatched as it introduces a whole new level of accuracy. There are competent and robust solutions that offer multimodality, for example, a cloud-based biometric API. The subjects can provide their fingerprints, facial scans, finger vein scans, and even iris scans for enrollment, authentication, and verification.
In the case of sensitive identity management projects, the organization can choose to implement multimodal biometric authentication – meaning that subjects have to provide more than one biometric feature to verify their identity, enhancing accuracy and security.
Significant cost reduction
Overhead costs are significantly increased when obsolete materials like ID cards, RFID tags, or paper-based systems are used for identity management. Also, as these systems have transferable identification attributes, buddy punching and time theft are common incidents – increasing costs.
Biometrics, on the other hand, eliminates all of the above issues. Organizations only need biometric hardware and software solutions – no need to buy additional RFID tags or ID cards whenever a new employee joins. Moreover, it reduces losses as buddy punching and employee time theft are eliminated – improving productivity and accountability in the process.
Virtually impossible to forge
With traditional identification, like paper-based systems, it’s easy to forge information. For instance, there are even cases when an employee was absent, but the paper-based attendance system showed that they were present! Someone else had covered for the absent employee. It’s pretty easy, as a signature can be easily copied, or an ID card can be transferred.
One of the prime benefits of identity management with biometric systems is that it’s virtually impossible to forge information – the employees or users must provide their biometric information to authenticate themselves.
Faster identification
When obsolete identification methods are used, it can take significant time to verify many individuals. Imagine a large manufacturing plant where hundreds of employees work. Now, if a large number of workers are clocking in or clocking out simultaneously, then processing all of them using an old identification method will take a long time. On top of that, processing a large number of employees simultaneously can lead to inaccuracies or buddy punches, as there would be no way to verify the information later on.
With a robust and experienced biometric identification system, it’s easy to process a large amount of data quickly and accurately. Consider the case mentioned above – if biometric identification is used, then the employees would simply need to provide their biometrics for authentication, and that’s it. Moreover, as already mentioned, since biometric features are not transferable and virtually impossible to forge, buddy punches and inaccuracies get eliminated.
Are you using biometrics yet for identity management?
As can be seen, the benefits of identity management with biometrics are many – all of which dramatically improve productivity and reduce costs. While many have already moved to biometrics since it’s easy to use and can be quickly implemented, many are still on the fence about it.
Are you using biometric systems for identity management at your organization?
