Hi John,
>>
I was wondering if anyone out there has had recent experience with using
finger print scanners to tag visitors with a unique identifier? I am
aware of the Science Museum's use from a while back and know that the
technologies have improved over recent years.=20
>>
As you probably know I was heavily involved in the Science Museum's
fingerprint scanning project back in 1999.
The good news is that
- Visitors love to scan their fingerprints - there's something about
seeing the pattern come up on the screen.
- Fingerprint scanners are designed for security applications so
they're deliberately made to be difficult to "mess about" with. For
the Science Museum project this made things really really difficult -
with progress this has since become merely "hard"
The bad news
- Fingerprint scanning is fundamentally unreliable unless you can get
a good "reference" print. This is the first time you scan your
finger. To be done properly you really need staff to supervise this
creation of the reference print. If pushed all fingerprint system
manufacturers will admit this.
- There are fundamental problems with using fingerprint scanning
systems with children. Some are physical - their fingers are too
small! Others are conceptual - young kids often don't have a mental
model of how it works so put a different finger on each time.
- Fingerprint/biometric companies consistently overstate the
reliability of these systems.
As you can see I spent a long time working with these systems and
could go on for hours. I've also recently been involved with more
modern systems for an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust. The bottom
line is that I would strongly discourage you from using fingerprint
systems in exhibition situations where accuracy or reliability is
important. If you just want to show fingerprints or something similar
then by all means go ahead and I'll be happy to give you more
specific technical information.
I would of course be interested to hear from anyone with different experiences.
All the best
Joe
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