Cuskey, Ipsen & McCall

Photo ID

The solutions developed by CIM are designed, in part, to facilitate all aspects of a given job or process. Many times, this involves identifying an individual participating in a given event. To this end, CIM offers and encourages the use of fingerprint biometric and Photo ID barcode scanning. Deciding which technology is the better fit for an application is dictated by the following factors:

Cost
Speed
Security

Cost

Cost considerations between the two are somewhat bipolar... while Photo ID Badging systems have a higher upfront cost, the readers utilized are less expensive. Also, ID cards can (and tend to be) lost... fingertips are not.

Speed

The speed differences between the two technologies is nominal. In the field, for example a cafeteria, it can take longer for a student to find, extract and swipe their ID card (assuming they have it) than to place a finger on a biometric scanner.

Security

Security is another double edged sword when considering the two. While a well designed Photo ID card will display the image of its holder, security lies in the hands of the cashier, for exmaple, scanning the card. Proper procedure dictates that the owner's image match both the image on the ID card and that on the computer screen.

Biometric scanning is, hands down, the more secure of the two.