As per an old saying “You can't teach an old dog new tricks”! But the government of India has decided to change the old habits of their employees. India's bureaucrats have long had a reputation for not sticking to time. In an effort to promote punctuality, biometric scanners have been installed at the offices of the Home Ministry.

From now on thousands of Home Ministry employees will register the time they arrive at and leave from work. A ten-minute delay three times a month will count as one day of leave. This marks the beginning of a drive to change the decades-old work culture of government employees, who have a reputation for arriving late and leaving early.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram said, “I hope that people absorb the spirit and the purpose behind which this system has been introduced. But this is a message to the whole country that everybody must do his work for the allotted time," he said. "I understand flexi time, we will introduce some flexibility, but the flexibility is if you come ten or fifteen minutes late, you have to work another ten or fifteen minutes."

The punctuality drive at the Home Ministry is music to the ears of thousands of people who have become accustomed to patiently waiting for government employees to turn up for duty, and endless delays in processing public documents such as passports. They are hoping other employees of the federal government, a staggering three million, will also have to fall in line.

However sociologists point out that it is not fair to blame just bureaucrats for slack time keeping. Punctuality is not an Indian virtue - whether at the official or social level. It is quite common for trains to run behind time, or for people to turn up late for official meetings. Guests seldom worry if they are hours late for lunch and dinner invitations, and marriage parties are often inordinately delayed.

Among the pieces of advise commonly handed out to foreign businessmen heading to India is not to pack too many appointments in a day, because several could run late.

Interswitch, an electronic transaction and payment processing company, has teamed up with Precise Biometrics, a developer of biometric solutions, to deliver Match-on-Card technology to the African banking industry. The partnership has already yielded one project which provides licenses for the product in 42 billion in Nigerian currency.

The partnership is significant to the banking sectors in Nigeria because the country has passed regulations requiring banks to do away with magnetic stripes for banking cards and instead adopting embedded chip cards.

The Match-on-Card technology from Precise enables banks to utilize biometrics for customer authentication at ATMs without having to store any biometric information. Precise Match-on-Card is in the process of storing and matching fingerprint information on a smart card to establish the physical presence of an individual. As the fingerprint information does not leave the card, there is no need for database or online communication, and the cardholder’s integrity is preserved.

Mr. Mitchell Elegbe, MD/CEO, Interswitch, in a statement said, “Interswitch is pleased to enter into this partnership, as Precise Biometrics is the leading provider of biometric Match-on-Card solutions and we believe that our joint efforts and technological know-how will have great commercial potential in the West African region”.

Biometric security is rapidly gaining adoption among both private & public sectors worldwide as a precise, trustworthy and economic way to provide better and advanced security surveillance.

The continuously growing security concerns ranging from individual identity theft and corporate security to national security are driving the biometric market. According to a new research on the biometric sector, the global biometric market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of around 18% during the 2010-2012. This report discusses about the current and future scenario of biometric market across various regions, underlining the future potential areas and key issues crucial for the market development.

Europe & North America dominated the global biometric market, accounting for a combined market share of 62% in 2009. It was narrowly followed by the Asia-Pacific region. The African & Middle East region is also expected to emerge as a growing market for biometrics by 2012 as the Gulf and South African regions are taking several initiatives and starting various biometric programs.

As per the report, the financial sector has been emerging as a potential adopter in global biometric market. In particular, banks are leading the charge in oder to cut down on increasing frauds. The most interesting thing is that a number of banks in developing countries (specifically Asian nations, including India, China, Malaysia, etc.) are looking upon biometrics as a way to curb fraud and offer customers an easy and more convenient authentication alternative to cards and PINs for transactions like ATM withdrawals.

“Face Recognition Solutions” has developed a new generation face recognition system in effort to improve security system. This system is based on live face recognition. This new concept is developed by keeping “No Human Touch” concept in mind. It make it very crucial for security system.

The new face recognition system requires just 0.07 second for detecting face and 0.13 second for processing the face. So it performs in a fast manner and do accurate detection of face.

This face recognition system is used for the following applications

• Time attendance system: This system easily integrated with time attendance system. So give you face recognition based time attendance system. You can also generate payroll for your employee.
• Access control system: our face recognition system is integrated with access control system. You can install this system at your gate, door etc. this system give visual monitor facility with access control facility.
• Visitor management solutions: you get freedom from conventional pen-paper based visitor management system. Our system give face recognition based visitor management solutions.

Some major features of this system are:

Though we have been listening the term “Biometrics” for quite some time and become aware of what this technology is all about, their uses and applications, and all that. But most of the people who are from non-technological background often find it very hard to understand the working principle and style of this technology and its products. In the subsequent paras we would try to understand the exact meaning of biometric.

Meaning of Biometrics
The term “Biometric” is made up of two different words BIO + METRIC. The word Bio means the biological traits or characteristics of human being and Metric means the measurement. Combining both the words it results in “the measurement of biological characteristics”. To put it simply Biometric is the measurement and identification of individual traits and characteristics.

Types of Biometric Characteristics
After becoming familiar with the term Biometric, we need to know what type of biological traits are studied under it. All the characteristics that uniquely signifies the identity of a person comes under biological traits. These characteristics can be classified in two major categories: Physiological & Behavioral.

• Physiological traits are related to the shape & structure of the body. It includes fingerprint, face recognition, iris recognition, DNA, hand and palm geometry, etc. The list is not limited and may include any characteristics that uniquely distinguish one person from the rest.
• Behavioral characteristics are related to the behavior of a person. It includes voice recognition, typing rhythm, gait, etc.

Now we knew sufficient about the biometric, the next important thing to understand is how these biological traits are used as the unique identity of individuals.

How Does Biometric Help us?
Let's us understand this from a simple example. When we try to access our email account or bank accounts, we need to feed password in order to get access. Password usually is combination of characters that can be stolen, hacked, and can be used for illegal purposes. In case our passwords are being stolen, it can lead to serious mischiefs. Here biometrics come to the fore to help us. Instead of passwords, biometric security systems and products enable us to access our accounts with the help of our unique biometric characteristics. And since these traits are unique no other person can access our accounts ever.

Like passwords, the biometric information of individual person is stored in the databases and when we feed our individual traits through the biometric devices, then it check the database and try to match with the previously stored one. If both the records matches it allows us the access and if not access is denied.

The National Australia Bank (NAB) has decided to use biometric voice recognition software to identify the genuineness of telephone bankers. It is not the single bank harnessing biometric security technology. Sometime back HSBC started using biometric technology capable of recognizing over 2,500 different facial features to help it control access to data-centres.

Organizations requiring high security are either monitoring or using the development of the biometric security technology industry.

According to Bob McDowall, analyst at TowerGroup, biometrics is an option for banks, but he warned that there are uncertainties and challenges for banks that use it. "It is not 100% because people's voices and faces change. The banks will also have to ensure that the voice and facial data used is secured appropriately because people may see it as an invasion of their privacy," he said.

Healthcare is the another sector that demands very high security. According to Tracy Andrew, head of information and security at Berkshire Shared Services, the NHS Trust only uses biometrics in its nurseries to control parental access."We use fingerprint recognition and it has been 100% successful. It has also improved our efficiency by automating access."

Sagem Sécurité (SAFRAN group), world leader in biometric identification solutions, and Schneider Electric, a leading control and signalling components manufacturer, have come along to combine their expertise to create a new innovative security solution for industrial environments: the Harmony biometric switch. The Harmony biometric switch is a very innovative biometric device that perfectly suits the needs and stipulations of the industrial market, providing optimum access control to systems and equipment.

The biometrics integrated in the switch combine high level of protection (unique access using fingerprint recognition) with user-friendliness (no key, badge or password that can be lost, forgotten, stolen or copied). The switch offers the industrial sector increased productivity by minimizing maintenance and operating costs of the system and, at the same time, prevents unauthorised operation.

The switch is simple to set-up as both its registration/recording and parameterisation are quick and intuitive directly on the sensor. It is designed to operate entirely independently, without the need of any additional interface (PC). Regarding installation, its compactness enables it to be easily integrated in a control panel due to its compliance to the standard diameter 22 mm cut-out mounting method.