Banks manifest securityÃÆ'Ã,¢Ã¢,Ã,¬"armed guards at the ready, wall-mounted cameras and massive vaults. But none of those measures means anything for Web-based financial institutions and other companies seeking to protect themselves from online intruders.
That's why ING Direct of Canada, a three-year-old online financial institution, turned to biometrics.
ING Direct chose technology that blends new high-tech hardware and software with an old-style identification method: fingerprinting.
But instead of using messy inks and paper, ING Direct's customers verify their identities on their home computers by grasping a special mouse manufactured by SecuGen Corporation that features a built-in thumbprint scanner.
Or, if customers prefer, they can use a biometric "hamster," a small, stick-shaped device that also includes a thumbprint scanner. Using one of these devices in combination with security software from Saflink, customers authenticate themselves through the thumb print scan, allowing them access to their bank accounts.
Fueled by a desire to offer its customers an added level of security, ING Direct launched earlier this year a pilot program that involves equipping 500 customers in seven countries with biometric mice or hamsters.
While bank officials said they believed that biometric technology could offer the added security and convenience they were seeking, they were less sure how the bank's customers would react to the new devices.
"We had thought there would be much more concern about Big Brother and somebody taking your fingerprint," said Brenda Rideout, who oversees the biometric pilot project at ING Direct. "People seem to be quite open to this technology and not quite as concerned as we had thought they'd be."
But the downside is still the price of the hardware, which costs slightly more than AU$100 per mouse, in addition to the accompanying software, Rideout said. "It's much too high to be a universal product," she said.
ING Direct will test the biometric devices through the summer before deciding whether to offer them to all its customers.
But the bank, a subsidiary of one of the world's largest financial services companies, ING Group of Amsterdam, is just one of a growing number of organisations looking to biometric solutions to provide more security.
Manufacturers of biometric devices contend they offer greater convenience and security than passwords or smart cards, which can be forgotten, lost, stolen or shared with others.
Last month, the technology got a boost from Microsoft, which announced that it will incorporate biometric authentication technology into its various Windows operating systems. The company said it will begin integrating technology that it recently acquired from I/O Software into its software as early as this season.
"There's great industry momentum right now, and it's something customers have been asking for," said spokeswoman Luisa Vacca, of Microsoft. "It's something that OEMs are looking to include in their various platforms, so it's not so far out there anymore."
Microsoft's decision to support biometric solutions will likely fuel industry growth, an industry analyst said.
"What Microsoft's decision has done is brought biometrics back to the attention of a lot of IT directors who once dismissed it as [not being] a viable technology," said Samir Nanacati, an analyst with consultancy International Biometric Group.
"Some may have been convinced that the technology was cheap enough and that it was accurate enough, but they were afraid to use it because they were hesitant to be on the leading edge of things. They were afraid they would be going it alone," Nanacati said. "With the endorsement of biometrics by Microsoft, that has really taken that away. They are part of the mainstream now."
An IT staffer at Kimberly-Clark agreed that Microsoft's involvement adds more legitimacy to biometrics.
"Our company, just like everyone else, wants to improve security. But with this technology being so new, it's really hard to decide which way to go," he said, asking that his name not be used. "I think most of us are waiting for some sort of industry standard to emerge or someone to take the lead with this stuff."
Mouse may not work with all sort of platforms like Linux, Mac, Unix only always to windows. But no thanks for getting another scan finger mouse would be a waste money rather using the good working mouse I used now. What would happens if it gets to problems with scanning like malfunction makes you have to buy another mouse. I do have optical mouse or cordless mouse that works fine but why waste it.