By Jo Best, 15 April 2004 17:25
NEWS The Home Office's Security Industry Authority (SIA) has announced today that it has signed a deal with ISL Biometrics to install biometric technology for network access.
Biometric authentication systems have been installed to give remote workers and office staff access to their laptops and PCs without the need for passwords.
The SIA is a newly formed organisation which regulates and licenses the private security industry think bouncers rather than firewalls and opted for a biometric authentication system to boost its own security.
Tim O'Neill, assistant director for IT, said: "Previously we had a good password system... but the simple fact is, no matter how well generated a password is, it's still insecure." With biometrics, the SIA can audit who has been using each computer, with any requests for access to another member of staff's PC being approved by management.
The change to biometrics has also stopped password bad practice by removing the temptation to write down log-in details or share them with colleagues. "After all, you can't go away on holiday and lend someone your finger," O'Neill said.
The SIA hasn't encountered many users with problems authenticating themselves with the biometric system, apart from with staff too hasty to take their finger off the reader and female staff members applying hand cream, resolved by a change of reader.
O'Neill said that staff had reacted positively to the biometrics. The ISL Biometrics system doesn't actually store images of the staff's fingers, sidestepping fears over Big Brother.
And while security rather than cost was the principle idea behind the rollout, the introduction of biometrics should nevertheless put a few quid back into the SIA's pocket. By getting rid of passwords and people forgetting them, SIA has seen savings on its helpdesk and IT support because staff no longer need their password details reset.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Wasn't there a student who defeated a fingerprint recognition system a while back, he used a gel patch with the required print stuck to his finger.
So this new system is proof against this form of attack is it ?
2. Dick Rowley
Can you PLEASE stop using flashing adverts on your site! It makes trying to concentrate on the text of the article bloody near impossible. I'll be sending the medical bills for my next epileptic fit to you lot...
3. jim
Whopey do. Haven't the rest of the world been doing this for ages?
4. Nigel Perry
I always keep a silicon rubber cast of my finger handy as a spare in case I lose or damage the original.
5. Iain MacKay
A good measure of the (lack of) freedom of a society is the extent to which the officers of the state have powers that ordinary citizens do not.
The problem with ID cards is not that we all have our movements recorded. It is that access to the information is privileged; only certain officials (honest or corrupt) may use it. These people then have special powers, and as history teaches us, power corrupts. For example, journalists and private investigators routinely bribe officials with access to DVLA. ID card related information is a bigger prize and will lead to more corruption.
I would support extension of state information gathering only if it is completely transparent; I could access Tony Blair's or the Queens data freely just as they could access mine. This would achieve and indeed greatly enhance the goal of law enforcement that advocates of ID cards are so keen on; but somehow I suspect most people will prefer that their personal information is accessible only to state officers and criminals.
Most of the comments I read here are technically sophistated but incredibly naive politically. Our state is benign purely because it is not very powerful. A state with a monopoly of intimate information about its citizens is far more of a threat to freedom and safety than any group of terrorists.
There are only two safe options:
- collect the information and make it public.
- don't collect it at all.
Sadly, the lesson of history is that no one learns anything from history.
6. Terence Freedman
Very good to use fingerprints so easily lifted from glasses in pubs and wine bars. Improved fingerprint lifting technology will provide access more easily than changeable passwords. A notebook stolen is stolen first and the owner can then be followed and further samples sought until a useable fingerprint is acquired.
If your fingerprint is 'stolen' there is no way to change it.
This method is grossly insecure.