Biometric Finger Print Identification Is It a Reliable Tool or Not?

Compared to a visual comparison of signatures or photo ID's, biometric identification is more accurate and less time consuming. This has resulted in application of biometric identification in diverse field from preparation of nationwide databases to daily attendance taking of employees of governmental and non governmental institutions. The present study is based of employee database registering attendance through biometric means. An important conclusion of the study is that biometric identification is not infallible and is prone to non correctable errors. Wearing down of fingerprint pattern was found to be a major source of errors in registering biometric fingerprint attendance. In agrarian rural economies like India were hard manual labour may be the only means of subsistence for a large population, this inaccuracy can be a source of avoidable problem for poor and hardworking people. This becomes especially significant when biometric identification based “Adhaar” cards are made a prerequisite for getting wages from government sponsored schemes developed for benefit of poor unemployed strata of Indian population. Databases developed by such methods are prone to limitations which have to be thoughtfully corrected before the system is fully institutionalized.