British firm UK Biometrics say they have joined forces with teams from Korea and the USA to develop the ‘second generation’ biometric readers.
American firm Lumidigm supplied their patented multispectral imaging technology for the products, which aim to consistently deliver clean images of fingerprints even when surface features are absent or hard to distinguish.
Keico Hightech, who pioneered the security and computer access control markets in Korea, supplied the terminals for the readers. Matthew James, Managing Director of UK Biometrics, said that together, the three companies form a world-beating team.
“Lumidigm readers are in use at major American tourist attractions and have proven their ability to deal with millions of individual fingerprints; they are impervious to bad weather and can recognise a fingerprint through latex gloves or dirt.
“This partnership will open up new markets in hostile industrial environments, hospitals, high security and extremely high volume locations.”
Lumidigm biometric readers are said to reduce error rates to less than one percent, making them suitable for high security applications. UK Biometrics say the readers are so robust they will operate in any weather conditions and even operate underwater.
James said that UK Biometrics, based in Newcastle, were beginning to get noticed on a global scale.
“We want to start careers in this exciting, embryonic industry. Our plan is to make the North East of England a global hotspot in the biometric industry and this partnership will help us achieve that goal”.
