Biometric Identification is On the Rise in Education Sector

An acceptable method of identification i.e. biometric technology is hitting the education industry with remarkable applications and solutions. Specifically, fingerprint scanning is one of the most used verification methods among biometric Identification adopted worldwide. It is a faster, better and cost-effective solution deployed for school administrators to keep track of students’ presence, accurate student records and to provide students, teachers, and staff with a secure environment. From corporate training to evaluation to identity verification during employee assessment, academic integrity is getting leveraged with the biometric back.

Biometrics Identification in the United States education sector is expected to mark $70 million by the end of 2019. From 2015, this growth rate is about 30%. This technology has paved the way for digital learning and has now become an indispensable priority for educators. Classes were restricted to lectures, physical objects and talks prior to the advanced era. Now, both teachers and students have a digital toolbox that ranges from engaging devices to the e-learning education market. Digital education is expected to surpass $243 billion by 2022. This fast-growing digitization is showing the willingness for the adoption of biometric technology in the educational sectors globally.

Biometric technology authenticated identity based on biological and physical traits. Not only limited to fingerprints but iris and retina scanning, facial recognition, voice and gesture verification, and hand geometry also involve in it. With a bunch of applications and capabilities, biometrics are becoming a useful tool for effective learning and maintaining academic integrity. Beyond this, it serves a solution for a significantly secure environment for the educational community. Registrars are using advanced biometric technology to authenticate the identities of students and staff upon enrollment.

How does it Work?

The biometric Identification system is successfully used in numerous applications. The unique biological traits serve as a verification solution for multiple sectors. The education industry is the one that is adopting this technology rapidly. Talking about fingerprint scanning, it includes a series of furrows and ridges on the finger’s surface. The unique pattern is identified and verified against the database that previously holds the fingerprint information. The sensors capture the fingerprint and unique identifying points of the surface of the finger and collect maximum information from those points. In facial recognition technology, facial features are captured by the camera and are matched with the ones in the database, if both images match, a status of verified is given otherwise it is rejected. Similar goes for iris and retina scanning. The unique iris traits for each person make biometric technology an innovative solution to deploy at an industrial level. 

Multi-factor Authentication 

A secure sign-on game can be upped with a multi-factor authentication system. Especially for the online educational portals where online registration can be ensured using multimodal biometrics. It uses a combination of two or more biological traits to verify the identity of users. A serious line of defense to allow authenticated users to be part of the system. 

Practical Applications in Education Sector

• Biometric Identification Academic Integrity

Online learning platforms can utilize the fantasy of biometric technology to verify the identity of learners online. Using facial recognition technology, identities can be verified using webcams. Also, it can be used to deter cheating during online assessments and examinations. Also, this results in an efficient method of using this technology to make it more accessible and user-friendly and allows us to verify them in real-time. During online tests, identity can be stored using biometric verification and then can be used within the tests several times to make sure that the same person is appearing throughout the test. 

• Controlled School Access

The access to the school should only be permitted to the ones who belong to it. Unauthorized access can harm the school’s environment directly or indirectly. The students, teachers and other staff including visitors should be authenticated through a biometric authentication system. An accurate time-stamped will result in an accurate database holding all the arrival and departure information. This checked-in solution can maintain an irrefutable record including the date and time along with the id or name of the person. This makes sure only authorized community to be part of a legitimate organization.

• Attendance System

For online course attendance, to ensure the integrity system owner can perform biometric verification online. This helps instructors to know about the students who are taking an online course are the ones who they say they are. Before registration the biometrics are stored that can be checked regularly before every class. 

School administrators are accountable before the state and federal governments provide funds to the university based on the number of students and their attendance. The ones who do not folow the guidelines of government are subjected to fines or are supposed to give them hundreds of dollars back. Here biometric technology plays its role, biometric attendance can ensure the real-time and quick attendance of students before. This can be done online using mobile applications in a class saving valuable time from the period.

• Library Account Registration and Books Issuance

In school libraries, students store their valuable academic assets such as books, notes, periodicals, documents, pieces of art and similar stuff. It could be a headache to verify the belongings of each student and keeping a record of the students who are entering or leaving the library. Librarians can install a system based on biometric verification, where students can have their online portals which are authenticated using biometric technology and the same biometric verification trait can be used in library itself to authenticate the online student and student demanding belongings physically. Also, to ensure the book issuance data, biometric verification can be used against certain identities of student to keep it in a library record.

• Biometric Identification For Online Book Stores

Online e-book stores can use a biometric verification system to authenticate the identities online at the time of registration or while entering credit card information for payment processing. This will reduce the risks of credit card fraud as in real-time identity can be verified which makes sure that transaction is performed by the real identity. Online stores are more prone to credit card fraud and online payment scams. Biometric technology can mitigate these risks allowing only honest traffic to be part of the system and making transactions.

In the education industry, biometrics can be induced to solve the myriad of problems encountered by the schools and online learning platforms. The accurate, auditable and cost-effective authentication mechanism, biometric verification can be used to introduced reliability and soundness in the schooling systems. Real-time biometric verification will also ensure an efficient security measure against several frauds while providing a better user experience at the same time.