Biometrics elevates cloud access control system to the next level

With the extra authentication of biometrics, cloud-based access control systems receive more secure user identification, and provides a more user-friendly accessing experience.

Instead of giving users access by recognizing an RFID card or the codes they enter, cloud access control systems can also differentiate entries by identifying people by their biometric characteristics, such as, retina, iris patterns, voice waves, hand geometry, earlobe geometry.

Compared to passwords or sensing cards, biometrics is a more user-friendly and secure option of authentication. It doesn’t incur any hassle onto employees to carry an ID or to remember a password, and it provides enhanced security for access authentication. “The biometric system is taking the cloud access control system to the next level in terms of authentication and security,” said Sunaxi Sangole, Research

Analyst at Fortune Business Insights. “Biometrics systems are enabled to provide better accuracy and reliability, as these systems recognize users based on their unique behavioral or physiological characteristics which cannot be duplicated. Furthermore, adoption of biometric cloud-based access systems will appear more in healthcare, banking and education to provide better security and verify authentication,” said Sangole.

Fingerprints, face-ID and more to come from biometrics

As a biometric product manufacturer, Anviz acknowledges the benefits biometrics can bring to cloud access control. “For sure biometrics technologies will help the cloud-based access control solution. Fingerprint and face recognition will bring easier and more flexible ways for access control, users don’t have any worry for losing the RFID cards or forgetting the pin-codes,” said Peter Chen, Product and Marketing Director at Anviz Global. While SALTO KS only uses fingerprints and face-ID in its biometric authentication, it believes that there will be more possible solutions to come in the future.

“While we value the advantages and potential of biometrics, we also acknowledge that there will always be new ways to authenticate, and that the organizations seeking high security levels will always be interested in the benefits of new physical authentication methods whether that’s retina scans, voice recognition, ets,” said Rick Voogt, Managing Director at SALTO KS.

Biometrics require an extra layer of data security

Further, biometrics also reduce costs for companies in its own fashion. “Biometrics can reduce the need for handing out and collecting physical credentials, such as proximity cards to each individual user. Stock management and loss of credentials is also a hidden running cost,” said Matthew Ng, Vice President of Product, Head of America at igloohome. However, there’s also personal biometrics data storage issues to solve when companies adopt to this method.

“System administrators should fully review the user privacy implications and policies and measures to secure the user data,” said Ng. “In some countries, the collection of users’ biometric data may be limited or outright. There may also be a need for a user opt-out clause, and alternative access methods need to be provided. Thus, increasing the complexity of the access methods and its ongoing management,” suggested Ng.