UK Firm ISL Biometrics Rides the Boom as Biometrics Takes Off
ISL Biometrics based in Bromsgrove, W. Midlands has seen a huge acceleration in business and their profits soar as major corporations around the globe seek out their products and expertise in their quest to roll-out biometric technology to their staff, customers and clients. Over the last 6 months ISL Biometrics – who specialise in biometric authentication software – have won major contracts with the NHS, ChevronTexaco, The Home Office, West Yorkshire Police, The London Library Service, The Danish Air force, The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Trust as well as many other corporations deploying biometric security alongside other authentication processes such as smartcards and tokens.
A number of factors have fuelled the take-up in biometrics including:
– The cost of fingerprint reader chips plummeting in cost from £60 to £4 per user.
– ID theft costing the British economy £1.3 billion a year.
– Users frustration of having to remember an average of 5-6 PIN numbers and passwords.
– The huge cost of managing corporate passwords. According to the Aberdeen Group, large organisations spend as much as $350 per employee annually on computer password management. Fingerprint readers cost £50 so can bring a ‘Return on Investment’ in just 12 months.
– Growing acceptance that biometrics are a cost-effective secure method of authenticating a person’s identity. This has been reinforced by the US government implementing the largest, IT intensive programme ever deployed using biometrics in 115 airports and 14 seaports across the US.
– Acceptance in the UK of biometrics as the UK government begins a 6 month trial of biometrics in passports with the objective that by 2005 passports will have chips containing personal biometric details.
To date the NHS are ISL Biometrics biggest customer, where passwords have been replaced with fingerprint readers for 40,000 NHS employees in over 60 hospitals throughout Britain. Over 30,000 remote NHS workers can also access patients’ records whilst out in the field and in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire patients can securely access their own medical records held at their Doctor’s surgery.
ISL biometrics have taken the lead in the biometric arena by establishing a “click-to-enable” product called SentriNET v3 which is the middleware that allows the strong and reliable authentication mechanism of biometrics, to appear seamless to the user and integrates with legacy applications, web applications, portals and networks as well as remote and physical access systems.
Russ Davis Chief Executive Officer for ISL Biometrics says, “We are seeing an explosive market, with interest not only coming from global players wishing to adopt biometrics but also from investors, partners and resellers. We believe passwords have had their day and 2 or 3 factor authentication using biometrics is the way forward.”
Davis continues “SentriNet v3 is as important to the biometrics industry as the network was to the computer. It gives the enterprise absolute identity management in a way that is simple, costs less and improves the users experience, governance and auditability. It provides a standard way of doing things by improving transparency as well as enabling best practice across an organisation.”
Asaf Niaz – IT Manager for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation says, “We are convinced that using biometrics is the only way to deal with users in today’s multiple password/pin environment. We mainly use biometrics for our EU initiative and users love it because it is simple and easy to use, secure and quick. It has also saved a massive amount of time and money on help desk calls.”
About ISL Biometrics
ISL Biometrics Ltd is a worldwide leader in the development of biometric user authentication for the enterprise, and has developed a range of biometrically enabled middleware and applications that are cost effective, easy to use, install, and support.
ISL’s SentriNET provides strong user authentication for identity management, access control and digital signing. In the modern enterprise environment SentriNET widely removes the need for passwords and alternate methods of authentication.
SentriNET is a flexible and highly scalable system, designed to work with existing applications, and unlike many other user authentication systems does not require the installation and maintenance of a secondary infrastructure of servers and user databases.
Along with an improved user experience, SentriNET delivers greatly increased security and user accountability, as well as a rapid and proven return on investment.
Security solutions from ISL Biometrics www.islbiometrics.com