From June 2007

By Karen M. Kroll

Like most waiters and bartenders, those who work in the restaurants at resorts operated by American Skiing use their hands for a variety of tasks, from taking customers’ orders to mixing drinks and carting food from the kitchen to the tables. Now, they can add a new job to their lists: using their fingerprints to securely access the point-of-sale system.

Fingerprint authentication is an easy-to-learn, secure method of controlling and monitoring employees’ access to the more than 200 POS terminals in use at the company’s resorts. That’s critical, given that the company’s employee base can swell dramatically during the winter skiing and snowboarding season, says Carol Boden, vice president of information technology with the Park City, Utah-based company.

American Skiing Co. (ASC) operates seven alpine ski, snowboard and golf resorts in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Colorado and Utah. The fingerprint authentication system is incorporated into a POS system called Digital Dining, a trademark of Springfield, Va.-based Menusoft Systems, and is in use at five resorts (food service operations at the remaining resorts are handled by another company).

To access the POS terminal and enter an order, waiters simply press a finger to the fingerprint reader. The reader electronically compares the image to a mathematical representation of the employee’s fingerprint previously entered into the system. Almost immediately, it can tell which employee is ringing up an order and accessing the register. “It’s very quick,” says Boden. “They just put their fingers down and they’re in.”

Boden and her colleagues considered alternative solutions before rolling out Digital Dining in 2004, but each came up short. Passwords, for instance, are apt to be forgotten. In addition, employees can use co-workers’ passwords, making it difficult to definitively state which employee rang up which order.

What’s more, the few seconds it takes to type in a password for each transaction can quickly add up during hectic lunch and dinner periods.

In order to maintain security with passwords, the company should require employees to change their passwords on a regular basis. Given ASC’s fluctuating seasonal workforce, administering password changes in a timely manner can be next to impossible.

Passwords and magnetic stripe cards require a fair amount of oversight on the part of the IT staff, and they often fail to provide the level of security that many businesses require.

Mag stripe cards can be lost or stolen. While only a small number of employees might be inclined to inappropriately use another employee’s card, even a few can have an impact on the bottom line, says Chip Mesec, senior product marketing manager with DigitalPersona, based in Redwood City, Calif.

“They can buy drinks for their friends or decide not to charge them for meals,” says Mesec. And, the cards often wear out over time.

This isn’t the case with fingerprint identification. While there is a risk that employees may injure a finger badly enough that the reader can’t recognize it, that risk is very small. (To protect against this, Mesec suggests that employees register two fingers in the system.)

What’s more, it’s not just ASC management that benefits. Employees say they like not having to remember passwords or hang onto mag stripe cards, according to Boden. It’s quicker and easier to enter orders into the POS system, and they take comfort in knowing that it’s virtually impossible for one employee to pass himself off as another.

Buddy-punching
Fingerprint authentication systems also can help ASC and other companies track employees’ attendance. This offers several benefits over more traditional time-clock systems. For starters, it becomes impossible for one employee to clock in – or “buddy-punch” – another employee.

While these incidents may appear insignificant, a 2002 study by the American Payroll Association in San Antonio found that buddy-punching can account for 5 percent of a company’s payroll.

In addition, because the fingerprint solutions require employees to clock in at the register instead of the backroom, they eliminate lollygagging. This refers to employees clocking in within a back office, but taking several minutes to walk to the register and begin working. In the interim, another employee often has to remain at the register. These small costs add up.

It’s not surprising, then, that the market for the biometrics industry is expected to more than double, to $7.4 billion, between 2007 and 2012. (These, figures, from the New York-based International Biometric Group, include all forms of biometric technology, such as face recognition, iris scans and fingerprint ID.)

To use fingerprint authentication, employees first must complete a one-time registration. They scan their fingerprints with the reader; within a few seconds, the scan is captured and the information registered.

It’s important to point out that the system doesn’t store images of employees’ actual fingerprints. Instead, it converts each image to a unique mathematical formula. Employees don’t need to worry that their fingerprints may find their way into the possession of another person.

Once they’re registered with the system, employees can use the fingerprint reader connected to any POS station on the company’s network to identify themselves and enter a transaction. The readers are not obtrusive, and hold up well in the less-than-pristine environment of a restaurant, says Boden.