Show Your Hand, Not Your ID

Colleges use biometric scanners to screen for access to dining halls, labs, dorms, gyms, and computer networks

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Colloquy: Read a transcript of a live, online discussion with J. Michael Floyd, director of food services at the University of Georgia, about security, privacy, and cost issues surrounding the use of biometric technology on his campus and others.

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By VINCENT KIERNAN

At many colleges, students flash a photo ID at a food-service worker to get into a dining hall. Things work differently at the University of Georgia, where Gavin Beck, a senior, places his hand on a sensor that determines if the person waiting to eat really is Gavin Beck.

The process, which measures the size and shape of the hand, takes only a few seconds. "No system is foolproof, but this is far more efficient for us than a photo-based system," says J. Michael Floyd, director of food services at Georgia. The university is among the first to use the biometric technology widely, having relied on it in one form or another in its dining halls since 1974.

Hand scanners, electronic fingerprint readers, even retina scanners are not just for super-spies in Hollywood movies anymore. The technology is increasingly being used by colleges to allow students, professors, and staff members to gain access to dining halls, laboratories, gyms, and other facilities on their campuses. Improvements in the technology are spurring greater interest among some college administrators.

Faculty and staff members who seek weekend access to the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, for example, must be approved by a device that checks 240 points in the iris of the eye.

Locks on dormitory doors at Johnson & Wales University at Denver are controlled by a hand-geometry reader similar to Georgia's.

Food-service workers at Georgia punch in and out of their shifts with a time clock that scans their fingerprints so that a worker cannot clock in for an absent friend.

Proponents say biometric technology offers increased security and efficiency, making lines move faster while keeping unauthorized visitors out. And at a time when colleges are trying to safeguard campus data, the technology offers colleges a new tool to control access to computers and networks.

But cost and various technical obstacles are likely to slow the technology's adoption by colleges. And some observers worry that the systems could leave an electronic paper trail — open to abuse or theft — of the activities of students and faculty and staff members. "It's an extremely disturbing trend," says Lee Tien, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that promotes online civil liberties. "Biometrics is a technology that is dangerous for privacy."

How It Works

Administrators who support the use of biometric technology say scanning body parts is far more secure than asking users for passwords, which can be forgotten or stolen. The scanning devices look for some unique characteristic of the user, such as the arrangement of ridges on the finger, the pattern of blood vessels in the eye, or the size and shape of the hand. The characteristic — called a biometric measurement — must be unique for each individual, must not change, and must be easily measured.

Typically a person's hand, fingerprint, or eyeball is measured once when he or she is enrolled in the system, and that measurement is stored in a computer database or on a smart ID card. At the entrance to a controlled area, such as a dining hall, the individual's characteristic is measured again and compared with the original recording. If the two measurements match, the person is admitted.

Georgia's early system recorded two-dimensional measurements of users' hands. But in 1995, as part of a campuswide move toward biometric identification, the system was upgraded to one that takes three-dimensional measurements. Now the 32,500 students use their hands as passports to all-you-can-eat meal plans, the recreation center, and dormitories. They either swipe an ID card through a card reader or enter an ID number on a keypad before presenting their hand for scanning.

Mr. Floyd, the food-service director, says the system rarely misidentifies anyone. Mr. Beck, the Georgia senior, recalls only one glitch, when the system wouldn't recognize him at the start of fall semester, probably because of a subtle change in his hand's shape over the summer. At a nearby office, he showed his ID, had his hand rescanned, and was cleared to eat his meal. "It set me back a couple of minutes," he says, "but it was no big deal."

The University of New Hampshire installed a hand-reading system in its dining halls when campus officials wanted to halt the sharing of all-you-can-eat meal plans by several people, says David J. May, executive director of hospitality services.

"It really has worked wonderfully for us," he says. Although he cannot estimate the amount of fraud that the system has stopped, he is convinced that "students would beat the system if we were using ID cards."

The cost of putting biometric security in place is not exorbitant, says Mr. May. Each hand reader costs about $2,500, and the turnstile to which it is connected costs $8,500 to $9,000. The 12,000-student university has seven biometric stations at its dining halls, he says.

Recently, New Hampshire expanded the system to control employees' access to one of its dining halls. That way the university will not have to issue keys to employees — or replace locks if keys are stolen. "If an employee leaves, we just take them out of the database," so the hand-reading system will no longer recognize that person, says Mr. May.

Smaller-Scale Projects

Biometric systems are also being used on a smaller scale on some campuses. At Rutgers University at New Brunswick, fingerprint-scanning devices are being installed on computers attached to laboratory equipment in the materials-science department.

The department, with some 80 potential users of the technology, has a password system to track usage of the equipment, so that the appropriate research grant is charged. But some students complained that they were being charged for others' use, says W. Roger Cannon, a professor of materials science and engineering.

That prompted him to investigate a biometric alternative. "If we had a fingerprint system, there would be no argument," he says.

The new system has functioned well in tests, Mr. Cannon says. "It seems to go pretty smoothly if you get the fingerprint centered right." Those with concerns about personal privacy can elect to continue using passwords, he adds.

The University of California at Santa Barbara recently installed an iris-scanning system for controlling access by about 500 people to a 10,000-square-foot "clean room" in a semiconductor-research center.

In the past, having those people swipe their ID cards at the door would result in more work for staff members, who would have to replace lost or broken cards, says Jack Whaley, manager of the Nanofabrication Facility. Moreover, the card readers were sometimes balky, he says, and nothing prevented people from lending their cards to others.

In the new system, an individual's eyes are photographed, and the images are digitized, encrypted, and stored on a computer server with information about what doors the individual is authorized to use and at what times. Researchers who want to get in simply step up to an iris reader, which transmits an image of the iris to the server. If the images match, the computer opens the door.

Some challenges remain, like reminding people who have "droopy eyelids" to open their eyes wide, says Mr. Whaley. But the system, which cost between $20,000 and $30,000, has made a negligible number of errors. "It's pretty good," he says.

More-exotic technology is on the horizon. Fujitsu Ltd. announced in June that the Chiba Institute of Technology, in Japan, has adopted a company device that uses infrared light to read the unique pattern of veins in a student's hand. The patterns are recorded on each individual's ID card. At kiosks on the campus, students can get access to their academic transcripts and other personal records by inserting the cards and holding their hand over a palm reader.

Next year the institute, which has about 11,000 students, plans to issue similar cards to faculty and staff members. It is considering expanding the system for such purposes as tracking library checkouts and class attendance.

Joel Hagberg, vice president for marketing and business development at Fujitsu Computer Products of America, says the company is discussing use of the technology with American colleges, which he does not identify. The system could start surfacing on American campuses early next year, he says. The vein scanner costs more than a fingerprint reader, which can run as much as $100, but less than an iris reader, he says, although he declines to provide specific figures.

The technology will probably materialize first at a large research institution, most likely as part of a centralized service such as controlling college officials' access to student records, Mr. Hagberg predicts, noting that such an application would require only a few palm readers.

"This is something that you will see coming to a university near you in the near future," he says.

Privacy Concerns

For all the efficiency and gee-whiz value of biometric technology, civil libertarians say it raises serious concerns about privacy. The theft or abuse of biometric measurements could be even more threatening than misuse of Social Security numbers, warns Mr. Tien, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Campus officials using fingerprint readers stress that their systems do not record individuals' fingerprints in images like those used by law-enforcement agencies. Rather, the systems produce a mathematical representation of fingerprints that would be useless to anyone outside the colleges.

Hand-geometry systems seem to cause the least apprehension because such measurements are not commonly used off campus and so would have little or no application if the biometric data were to leak out. "The only person it does any good is me," says Mr. Beck, the Georgia student.

Keene State College, in New Hampshire, moved to a hand-reader system this semester. Paul A. Striffolino, director of campus life, says the system does not intrude on the privacy of the college's 5,000 students. "An eye-scanning system would seem over the top to me," he says.

But some observers say even hand-geometry data could be misused. If hand readers become commonplace, authorities could use records from the systems to reconstruct a student's movements and activities on the campus or across a broader area, says Mr. Tien.

"It facilitates an atmosphere or a climate of checkpoints," he says. "All it is, is maybe a faster way to get through a door. We have to wonder whether these are the right trade-offs to be making."

Indeed, records of a student's biometric measurements, as well as records of where and when that student used a biometric device, probably would be protected from public disclosure under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, says Steven McDonald, general counsel at the Rhode Island School of Design, who tracks the effect of the federal law on the use of technology on campuses.

In most cases, he says, Ferpa would not allow a college to disclose, without a student's permission, where and when that student had entered a dining hall, for example. But the records could still be used by the college's own staff and might be vulnerable to subpoena by law-enforcement officials, he says.

Nancy Tribbensee, deputy general counsel at Arizona State, says a college should acknowledge privacy concerns before settling on biometric technology. She suggests that college officials consider whether the benefits, like tighter security, would be outweighed by ways in which the data could be abused.

Recordings from the iris scanner at the university's Biodesign Institute are not covered by Ferpa, Ms. Tribbensee notes, because the system is used by faculty and staff members. But the university treats the data as personnel records and therefore as confidential, and it would fight any effort to obtain copies through the state's public-records law, she says.

High Price Tag

Privacy is not the only concern about biometric security systems. Some users also worry about safety — for example, whether touching a hand reader could expose someone to colds and the flu from previous users. Mr. May, of New Hampshire, says the device is "no different than a doorknob." Still, liquid hand sanitizer is available at each hand reader, in a dispenser attached to the wall, and a staff member wipes the readers with a sanitizing solution every 15 minutes.

Another hurdle facing biometric systems is cost. Last year Creighton University considered using fingerprint readers to control access to the 1,500 to 2,000 computers in its laboratories and offices. At $90 to $100 a pop, Creighton would have had to spend as much as $200,000 on the devices — and that wouldn't have included the cost of upgrading the machines as technology advanced. "That would have been a huge expense," says Michael M. Allington, assistant director of student-technology support in the information-technology department. Creighton took a pass.

Still, industry officials argue that biometric systems make financial sense for colleges, at least in some situations. The staff and systems needed to maintain a list of passwords for security systems might cost a college $50 per student annually, says Tom Doggett, director of marketing for Saflink Corporation, which makes a variety of biometric systems. By contrast, he says, a large college might spend $30 to $40 per student to deploy a biometric system.

"You could make the case that the system would pay for itself in a year," Mr. Doggett says.

But James L. Wayman, director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University, which explores technical issues related to the technology, is less optimistic.

It is unclear, he says, whether dining halls are losing enough money from fraud to warrant the expense of a biometric system. "Will it pay?" he asks. "That's where it all falls apart."

"Tell me again," he says, "why you need them on college campuses."

Biometric systems can also have technical problems, which have prodded a few colleges to back away from the technology.

Recently the New York State Center for Engineering Design and Industrial Innovation, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, encountered problems with a fingerprint-scanning system used to control access to its facilities. The readers worked well in 2000, when they were installed inside the building, says Kenneth W. English, deputy director. But the design center is planning an expansion that would require placing the access controls on the building's exterior, and the fingerprint readers worked poorly there because of snow and ice. So the center is reverting to having users swipe ID cards through a card reader.

Mr. English hopes that improvements in biometric technology will allow the center to move back to fingerprint readers in the next two or three years.

'Weak Fingerprints'

When Creighton considered fingerprint readers, it tested several models. But the machines had a hard time recognizing faculty members in the dental school, recalls Mr. Allington. They seemed to have less-visible fingerprints, probably because of the frequency with which they washed their hands, he says.

A similar problem surfaced in Georgia's food-service department, where 600 employees use a fingerprint system to sign in and out of work. About 10 of them, whose work often keeps their hands submerged in water, have "weak fingerprints" and so cannot use the biometric system, says Christopher H. Wilkins, an information-technology manager in the university's food-service division. They still clock in and out by swiping an ID card or entering an ID number.