Facial Recognition Terminals: The Newest Kid on the Biometric Attendance Block

Back in September of this year, Lathem announced the introduction of its ground breaking face recognition employee attendance terminal. The concept has made a splash and we do think that this new biometric terminal is here to stay.

 How do facial recognition readers work?

Fingerprint and hand readers have been around for more than a decade, so biometric technology isn’t exactly new to the market. What is new is the use of facial landmarks for verification. Each face has numerous and distinguishable landmarks, the different peaks and valley that comprise our facial features. On every human face there are approximately 80 unique landmarks including:

• distance between eyes
• width of nose
• depth of eye sockets
• length of jaw line
• shape of cheekbones

These landmarks are used in the verification process to confirm the identity of an individual. In the verification process, the terminal compares the facial image captured to the image it has in its database.

With the introduction of facial recognition time and attendance has certainly taken a huge step forward in terms of technology, but is facial recognition for innovation simply for innovation’s sake or does it serve a purpose?

What unique benefits do facial recognition terminals provide small businesses?

Like hand geometry, facial recognition has an important place in the biometric attendance world. In many businesses (manufacturing, chemical processing, etc.), fingerprints are rendered useless. These businesses have previously been best served by hand reader terminals and the new facial recognition technology may soon prove to be encroaching on that exclusive territory. Facial recognition terminals do not require fingerprints and provide the same level of security as any biometric terminal. Also, early pricing is looking as though it will be priced more affordably than the hand reader terminal.  So with many benefits of a hand reader and attractive pricing, we certainly believe that this terminal is a market contender.

If you have any questions on facial recognition technology, please feel free to give us a call at 1 (800) 960-3735.

Resources:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/facial-recognition1.htm