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Getting Fingerprint Readers to Read Your Prints?
crypticgeek asks: "I recently obtained a new job, and I'm already at my wit's end. Many of the doors in our facility have finger print readers because they are high security areas. No matter how hard I've tried, I can't get the system to read my prints very well, since they aren't well 'defined'. This means I don't have access to the areas I need to. I have to have someone else let me in to secure areas. I've tried using lotion thinking they were too dry, but that didn't work. In fact, most of the time my hands are really sweaty. Someone suggested I use nail polish remover and that would 'raise' the print, however I'm skeptical. Has anyone else had problems with finger print devices, or know of some possible ways of getting a better read?"
The FBI has a special recommended way to clean hands before getting prints. You washed your hands in soap, then rinsed in alcohol, and then air dryed, no towel.
Basically this is correct. This is not a problem that you can solve, and it's not something you should worry about, aside from notifying your superiors that it's a major problem for you.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Sorry, but you might just be hosed. I work for a company that does biometrics, and a few people who work for us just don't have well-enough defined prints to make the sensors read reliably. Sometimes you can help that by pressing harder or lighter. Also, some readers can be adjusted for sensitivity. The problem with cranking the sensitivity up on a public reader is that can make it *less* reliable for people with normal prints.
Are the sensors chip-based or optical? If they're chip-based, I've found that having clean fingers helps, but if I *just* washed and dried my hands, it's harder to get a good read than if I wait a minute for some sweat/oil to form on the skin again.
If your actual fingers don't work, then make your own out of play-dough or other materials. The success rates with spoofing systems may be better than with your real finger. Also consider that the problem is compounded by the fact that their original copy of your fingerprint may also be poorly defined.
Are your other fingers equally poorly defined? Compare them to each other (and other people's as a control group) to see if one of your fingers works better (hopefully your middle finger for added irony). Then get the company to switch to your new finger.
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by soaking your finger in some water, then drying it off. They key is to do it long enough that the ridges rise, but stop before you've got raisin's for finger tips. annoying, but doing it first thing in the morning should leave them like that all day.
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No idea what you should do, but soaking your fingers in nail polish remover (acetone) or some such is not an especially good idea - it gets absorbed through your skin and into your bloodstream, where it's awfully hard on your liver.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
There's something called Ridgebuilder - it's designed to temporarily enhance fingerprnts. I'm a surgeon and typically 'cause we scrub our hands so much we have ill-defined fingerprints. Part of being medically licensed, requires us to be fingerprinted, and many of us have difficulty with this part due to the polished nature of our hands. Ridgebuulder is one of the products recommended to help us become successfully printed.
..........FULL STOP.
A big warning about the previous post.. many fingerprint scanners and touchscreens are actually damaged by alcohol, especially older ones. So unless you want to ruin it for everyone, make darn sure with the manufacturer that it won't cause damage.
There is a lot of bad advice in the thread. Some things I have found that really work
1. The number 1 cause of bad prints is dryness. Make sure your finger is moist. You can do this with lotion or simply rubbing your fingers together
2. Press firmly but don't mash your finger into it.
3. If it doesn't work after a second or two, lift it up and try it again.
4. Make sure you are covering the scanner completely. Don't just scan the tip of your finger. The more area you can cover it with the better.
5. If it still doesn't work, try scooting your finger higher up on the scanner to get the better prints towards the bottom of your pads.
6. Most setups have the option of registering a different finger. Try your middle finger or your thumb instead.
7. If a lot of people are having trouble, they probably have the match settings too high or the scanner is defective. But more than likely, it is probably you.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
That said, here's some documentation for that claim, some of which include suggestions for how to easily bypass such systems, perhaps one of them will work for you, although I don't recommend the first one:
Malaysia car thieves steal finger
DHS and UK ID card biometric vendor in false ID lawsuit
Unsupervised biometric scanners more toys than serious security
Impact of Artificial Gummy Fingers on Fingerprint Systems
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I've been doing biometrics related stuff for the last several years, and I can tell you that there are a *lot* of people who don't have easily-scannable fingerprints. Many people who do a lot of work with their hands basically keep their fingertips polished smooth. One colleague of mine has a grandmother who quilts a lot and the constant rubbing of fingertips against cloth erases her ridges. A national ID project in Nicaragua (IIRC) ran into lots of trouble because most of the women cook tortillas and frequently grab the hot tortillas with their fingers to flip and remove them, burning their fingerprints off in the process. People who do hard labor often have thick, cracking callouses which cause problems.
It also appears to be a bigger problem for women than for men, women seem to have naturally fainter ridges than men, and asians seem to have fainter ridges that other races. I've met lots of asian women who have basically no ridges at all.
Other people have a different problem. Most fingerprint recognition algorithms want to look at some nice whorl patterns, which is where the most identifiable splits and changes in the ridges are found, but this "central" portion is not very centered on some peoples' fingers. For some, it's closer to the fingertip or closer to the knuckle, and I even met one man who got the best readings by tilting his finger about 30 degrees to one side.
Finally lots of people have problems using fingerprint scanners because they don't know how to use them. "What's to know?" you might think. Actually, you do have to learn how to position your finger on the sensor, and how much pressure to apply. Bad positioning, or too much or too little force, will give you poor scans.
So, to find a solution (other than getting your employer to fix or get rid of the scanners), I suggest you firse see if you can figure out what the problem is. Some things to look at/try:
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And it never occurred to him to invoke the ADA?
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