As the potentially deadly COVID-19 virus continues to spread, many offices, retail operations, manufacturing facilities and other businesses close and send employees home to work. Those empty facilities ' contents can become easy targets for criminals.

 

Most companies are secured by conventional plastic access cards or access control schemes. Yet, by themselves, they may not be enough. Commonly used forms of cards-mag stripe, proximity, even MIFARE or iCLASS-may be cloned by an accomplished hacker within minutes. Which will produce two equivalent cards but the disparity will not be recognized by the device program.

 

Imagine server rooms, storage of equipment and many other places which are all readily available to unauthorized people. That is why it has become so necessary to provide two-factor authentication using a biometric technology. Cloning fingerprints, facial expressions, and iris patterns is hard, almost difficult.

 

But what betters one biometric device than the others? Readers needing fingerprint touch. The COVID-19 virus has been demonstrated to live for as long as three days on stainless steel and plastics. Facial recognition is contactless; but the systems are not the most reliable. And many people wearing protective masks today merely decrease the accuracy.

 

Recognition of iris is highly precise, able to recognize a person wearing gloves, masks, goggles, glasses and lenses. It's likewise contactless. There is also no need to reenroll workers into the security program as the iris pattern of a individual is set at birth. 

 

Installing iris recognition readers at building entrances provides a vital second layer of protection at insecure premises as they remain vacant during this global health crisis.

By Mohammed Murad is vice president global sales and business development, Iris ID