Biometrics: it's not about the technology

19 Jul 10

Good technology underpins many processes, both inside and without the business and, as many end users will know, understanding how technology works is rarely integral to its usefulness.

Indeed, technological excellence can in some part be measured by how little we need to know about a product to be able to use it. Such is the case with biometric technology, where the biometric itself is only part of the story.

Our real interest concerns (a) how easy it is to use on a daily basis, and by staff of varying technical aptitude and (b) what are the possible outcomes of using this technology?

For the latter we want to know the answers to further questions… How can the application of biometrics improve business processes? How might it protect us from litigation? How can it keep us secure and reduce risk? How can it cut unnecessary expense?

In other words, whether financial or not, most of us are concerned with return on investment (ROI), most notably when building a compelling business case to justify our investment to the Board.

Exactly what kind of ROI can organisations expect from biometric technology, and what are the real benefits to your organisation? Here’s an outline of the three main business benefits and how they can impact business operations.

Security ROI: the cost of making a mistake

For most organisations, security ROI almost exclusively relates to the question: “What is the cost of making a mistake?”

If the cost of making a mistake is measured in compromised security, deaths of citizens, loss of secrets – all easier to identify than measure – rather than a monetary figure, then we are probably dealing with ‘Security ROI’.

If you’re a large Government agency, the impact on security is likely to be top of the agenda, but it’s also relevant to many other organisations (such as correctional facilities, border controls and even banks).

With security ROI we see not just a difference in the level of deaths/information leaks/terrorist threats as a direct result of tighter security, but also a not-to-be-underestimated perception element that serves to dissuade people from attempting criminal acts.

Perception also plays a key role when it comes to public relations. For example, in one Australian bank biometric solutions were implemented to demonstrate compliance and improve the customer perception of banking security rather than to prevent fraud.

Even more surprisingly, it was not used to improve security in traditional access control areas. This is simply because the cost of making a mistake is addressed by insurance cover.

In other words, it’s not worth their attention to place biometrics into the security matrix… but it was worth them investing in this technology to be able to say to their partners and clients: “Look at how seriously we take our security”.

In this scenario, the impression of improved security helped to increase trust in the bank. In many ways, this is a form of brand management and, while difficult to measure directly, should not be discounted in terms of its power to sustain profitability.

Where organisations and individuals are accountable for public security, sometimes on a national scale, the costs of ‘getting it wrong’ are unthinkable and certainly not just in a financial sense. The security benefit may not carry an easily quantifiable monetary figure, but it doesn’t take much imagination to know what the real saving is here.

Productivity ROI: improvements to the business

With productivity ROI, benefits are measured in business improvements, whether through streamlined processes or increased outputs. These benefits are most evident in highly procedural work places, such as policing and other law enforcement agencies.

With productivity we are likely to ask ourselves questions like: is this going to change the way I work? If it does, what are the productivity gains?

Interestingly, productivity gains can come about indirectly from the biometric implementation, as much as directly from the biometric. For example, if employees are required to be more accountable for their time or actions, knowledge of this can lead to increased productivity before engagement with the actual biometric.

Productivity can also be measured in a more positive way. Two examples help us understand this business model, both of which concern a face recognition deployment with the New South Wales (NSW) State Police using IWS Law Enforcement.

NSW Police is the fifth largest police force in the world, covering an area larger than the United Kingdom and France combined.

The first example deals with the face recognition toolsets that produce photo line-ups and photo mug books, known as PhotoTrac.

PhotoTrac allows NSW Police to select 20 photographs from a database of more than 1.5 million images in order to create photo line-ups or mug books. When manually constructed, mug books were produced at a rate of just 20 per month. With PhotoTrac this number was lifted to more than 2,000 a month – a rate of production that has a direct effect on the number of arrests and the speed with which they are made.

The second example concerns a product called Witness View that draws on the same database of 1.5 million images as PhotoTrac. However, in this case the images are biometrically sorted to produce an online photo line-up called Witness View. This allows those who witnessed a crime to identify people from a line-up using an online, remotely managed solution.

It’s a process that cannot be interfered with by the police and, as such, is accepted into Court proceedings as a valid witness identification claim.

The foremost productivity benefit of biometric sorting is simply that it captures more witness identifications than a manual line-up system. As traditional line-ups occur long after the crime is committed, this often creates hostile witnesses. By that we mean witnesses who feel it’s too long since the crime and, as a result, don’t want to be reminded of the incident and certainly don’t want to revisit the person involved.

With the biometric solution in place, a line-up can be managed within hours or days of the event.

Naturally, this affects the ability of the police force concerned to solve crimes and the quality of evidence available, directly impacting criminal proceedings.

Other tangible benefits include:

• lessening or eliminating collaboration between witnesses (photo selection is random)
• reduction of stress associated with the process, especially if related to a violent crime
• prevention of police officers being accused of ‘leading’ witnesses
• removal of the need for specialist support teams (also a cost saving)

Productivity benefit for specialist teams

In the case of specialist teams, we can see an enormous productivity benefit. Travelling long distances to conduct line-ups is not only expensive, but also creates a core of knowledge that results in workflow log jams.

With Witness View any police officer at any of 60 equipped stations around can set up the program and have a witness conduct the line-up.

In terms of measurability, the following metrics more than adequately demonstrate the impact that biometric technology can have on productivity:

• the Australian Federal Police show time savings of 61%
• St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney shows reductions in man-hours from 140 to 11 hours per week
• the Silverwater Remand Centre shows reductions from as many as four hours waiting time per person, per day to just “seconds”

These examples highlight that productivity benefits can occur without any direct correlation to the biometric technology or the application itself.

Improved efficiencies in workflow processes, arrest procedures, street patrolling strategies, radio communication and in headquarter support team efforts are but some areas that have been touched by the implementation of this solution set.

Financial ROI: making the strongest case

When it comes to presenting to the Board, financial ROI is often where the strongest case can be made, and for good reason: the more tangible the benefit, the easier it is to justify and understand.

There are many ways in which biometric applications can help organisations cut costs (more often than not through reducing overheads like headcount).

In one such example, an access control system helped a customer save more than $160,000 per annum on the basis of reallocated security officers.

Another example concerns a firm in Sydney, where the company was able to very clearly identify what its potential losses were for time not delivered, but for which staff were paid. From ‘go live’, the real savings were evident within the first two weeks. In that time, the firm docked the wages of any person who started work more than 15 minutes late, reducing its salary bill by more than $2,000.

It should also be noted that, at the time of the trial, 98 staff rather than 150 were involved. The CFO noted the company saved $1,000 a week in salaries, yet achieved the same productivity.

As you might expect, the company also realised other non-financial benefits, which included:

• uncovering three illegal migrants
• uncovering and preventing “buddy punching”
• discovering fraudulent staff behaviour, which led to one sacking

Clear financial benefits are also evident in the healthcare market, where biometrics are used to regulate the dispensing of methadone. The costs associated with overdose deaths are reported as being anywhere from $300,000 per death to as much as $1million.

A solution that delivers one or two ‘life savings’ in this case is going to deliver monetary savings as well.

Benefits vary according to industry and organisation

While the benefits of using biometrics software are manifest, they will vary according to industry and organisation. It’s essential to understand the nature of ROI that your organisation can achieve. Quantify this where possible: whether in terms of time, money or peace of mind.

Speak to organisations who have implemented similar solutions to understand how and why biometrics have benefited them and the kind of savings you can expect. Then use this as the basis of your business case when presenting to the Board.

With well-thought through predictions and sufficient supporting evidence, this not only gives your budget holders confidence, but also instils more confidence in you, too. That cannot be bad.

Bruce Lyman is CEO at Argus Global

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