Authentication and More: Fingerprint Recognition is the Answer

I recently had a conversation with Carl Temme at Atrua Technologies, a company that builds hardware and software for fingerprint recognition applications (as well as touch controls, but that's another story). I've known Carl for a very long time; we first met when he was at Wi-Fi chip pioneer (and still leader) Atheros Communications, and then again during his tenure at MIMO pioneer AirGo Networks, which was acquired by Qualcomm. Atrua isn't really in the wireless business, but, as it turns out, their products and technologies have far-reaching benefits for mobility and wireless going forward.

Fingerprint recognition has been around in various forms for literally thousands of years, but it is just now appearing in volume in mobile handsets thanks to the usual benfits accruing from lower costs due to advances in basic technologies, implementation, packaging, and manufacturing, along with standards and a little bit of marketing buzz. I think, in fact, that fingerprint recognition technology will become quite pervasive over the next few years, at least in business-class mobile IT devices, from handsets to notebooks and MIDs.

And the reason for this is that fingerprints are the ideal second factor in a two-factor authentication mechanism, which I have long advocated as the best practice for device, network, data, and application security, mobile or not. We always have our fingers with us, and there's no need for a security token or other (expensive and easily misplaced) hardware device. The chances of someone being able to spoof a fingerprint are very, very slim. We can also implement all kinds of clever capabilities, such as using each of our ten fingers to enter different information, or the use of a combination of handset and fingerprint in place of a credit card, building access pass, or even car key. The sky's the limit here, with convenience unmatched in any other authentication technology.

I have recently completed a new Farpoint Group White Paper on this subject, which covers fingerprint recognition technology and applications in much more depth than I have room for here. Bottom line, regardless: I'm of the opinion that fingerprint recognition will become the preferred and most popular approach to mobile security over time. Check out the White Paper for the whole story.

• Wireless / Mobile
• authentication
• fingerprint recognition
• security