Will 2018 Be the Year of Biometric Access Control?

For years, we have seen futuristic movies in which fingers, eyes, and palms are scanned to grant access to high-security facilities with the use of biometric detection devices. In the real world, biometric device usage in facility access control applications has been growing but slowly.

The growth of biometrics usage in real-world applications has been slow for several reasons. First, the cost of the biometric devices has remained fairly high in comparison to traditional access control card readers. While the price of this technology has continued to drop, it is still significantly higher than the cost of a traditional card reader.

Second, biometric adoption has been slow due to early technological challenges which resulted in less than 100% success with biometric identification. The lack of 100% identification created false negatives (access denied) which resulted in user confusion and frustration.

Fortunately, as the technology continues to improve, the challenges are diminishing, and some believe that 2018 is the year when biometric adoption will begin to accelerate. In this article, the author states that 2018 is the year when we will see an acceleration in usage and points to healthcare as a market where biometric usage is forecasted to grow at a compounded rate of 22.9% over the next several years.

There are several reasons for the expected increase in biometric usage for access control applications. First the cost of the technology continues to decrease. Second, as chip processing power has improved, the technology has become more effective, resulting in fewer access denials from false positives. Third, there are more options for how a user interacts with a biometric device. Originally, the devices worked with fingerprints only. But, with new technologies, facial recognition and hand print detection are also available for biometric identification.

Finally, one of the biggest reasons for the acceleration in usage of biometric technology for access control applications is convenience. With the use of biometrics, there is no need to carry a card or fob—your credentials are always with you.

In conclusion, we believe that the use of biometric technology for facility access control in Atlanta and throughout the Southeastern United States will become more and more popular as the technology improves and becomes more affordable.