M2SYS Blog On Biometric Technology

M2SYS CEO to Speak at 2012 Biometrics Summit

Where: Miami Hilton Downtown, Miami, FL

When: February 27 – March 1, 2012

M2SYS Informational Session: Day two,  02/29/12, 3:25pm

M2SYS CEO Mizan Rahman will be speaking next week at the 2012 Biometrics Summit in Miami, FL. Mizan will be joined by James Rokosky from our partners at DSI-ITI, LLC. to dicsuss using multi-modal biometrics to enhance the public safety sector by securing the identification and tracking of inmates and visitors.

Due to increasing crime rates, correctional facilities are finding it difficult to securely manage the ever-growing number of identification records for prisoners and visitors. Proper identification of inmates prior to release is critical to public safety, and often times, over-populated and under-staffed jails may release unauthorized inmates due to human error or to inmates swapping ID bracelets with other inmates. Multi-modal biometric identification solutions provide a fail-safe way to properly manage correctional facilities. By using biometric identification at key areas throughout a detention center, the management system can track inmate and visitor movements throughout the day. Inmate and visitor whereabouts can be determined at any time, which increases accountability and in turn, increases overall jail security and safety.

Sharing experiences of how biometrics has evolved in the public safety sector, this session will focus on the functionality and advantages of using multi-modal biometric identification in detention centers for inmate and visitor management, including:

• How to deploy biometric identification for prisoner and visitor identification within a facility
• Why liabilities inherent with identity management in the public safety sector are virtually eliminated with biometric identification
• Using accurate and efficient multi-modal biometric technology to track and control visitor registration and inmate intake, release, medicine dispersal and location

If you are in Miami for the conference, please drop in to hear Mizan speak. Hope to see you there!

Tweet Chat on Biometric Technology

When:  October 6, 2011

11:00 am EST, 8:00 am PST, 16:00 pm BST, 17:00 pm (CEST), 23:00 pm (SGT), 0:00 (JST)

Where: Tweetchat.com

What: The First tweet chat about biometric technology

                                                         Topic: Biometrics and Privacy

October the 6th, 2011 will mark the first tweet chat on biometric technology of its kind.  After running a couple of polls and talking with some industry professionals, we thought it was a good time to start a chat that helps educate, promotes communication and openly discusses challenges and issues that the biometrics industry faces.  Plus, it will also provide an opportunity to take a look into the future and ponder what changes may lay ahead and how they can affect the many different vertical markets that biometric technology touches.

Not familiar with a tweet chat?  A Twitter tweet chat is a  pre-scheduled chat on Twitter where participants can discuss and learn in real time through the use of updates (tweets) about topics of interest with other industry professionals and anyone else who wishes to participate.  Formal Twitter tweet chats are arranged in advance and occur at a specific time.  The biometric tweet chat will include a formal agenda with a specific leader or “speaker”, and involve a free flowing discussion between all participants.

To make tweet chats easier to follow, a Twitter hashtag is used for each chat so you can easily follow the conversation by creating a separate search within your favorite Twitter platform.  The hashtag that will be used for the first chat is #biometricchat  Although it is possible to participate in a tweet chat through a platform such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, we recommend using an online platform like Tweetchat which makes it very easy to follow the discussion, add in your own tweets and ask questions to the guest or other participants.  Simply click on “Sign In” on the top right hand corner and authorize the application (if you are already signed into Twitter) or enter your Twitter handle and password.  You will then see a hashtag symbol at the top of the page (#) and an open field directly next to it.  Type in “biometricchat” and the stream will then begin to list all of the tweets that are marked with the hash tag #biometricchat.  If you want to contribute to the conversation, type your tweet into the box below “Message to #biometricchat” and then hit your “enter” key or click on “update.”  You can also @reply to tweets, or retweet (RT) using the symbols on the right hand side of each tweet in the stream.

The format of the first chat will be single question, topic based Q&A which means that the chat will be on a general topic (privacy and biometrics), that asks specific, numbered questions to a guest throughout the chat within that topic. Each question gets roughly 15 minutes, and the chat lasts one hour. Participants can follow along the chat stream, and add any answers of their own to the questions, plus add opinions, additional questions and any other thoughts.  We expect that everyone understands there is a level of respect, decency and courtesy which is expected from participants and this is not an opportunity to castigate, berate or intentionally demean any guest or participant in the chat.

Our first guest for the inaugural biomteric tweet chat will be James Baker who will be representing the NO2ID campaign in the UK. James has previously written a guest blog post about biometrics and privacy for M2SYS in which he articulates his viewpoint on the perception of biometrics from privacy advocates and suggestions on how the industry can improve the technology to work towards privacy enhancement. James (and possibly some additional colleagues from the campaign TBD) will share; thoughts about biometrics and privacy to help everyone understand the issues that they see, the reasoning behind their views and the fundamentals of their interpretations.  We are grateful that they will be our guests for the first biometric tweet chat.  This discussion is not meant to be biased, but rather a free flow of conversation and open communication about biometric technology and privacy.

If there is a question that you would like us to include during the chat, please submit it to: john@m2sys.com and we will do our best to include it during the chat.  If the first biometric tweet chat goes well, we will continue to schedule the chat for the first Thursday of every month at the same time.

We look forward to seeing everyone on the 6th of October, and hope that you will spread the message to any colleagues or friends that you feel would benefit from the chat.  Please feel free to leave any comments below.

Continuing in our goal of helping the community through volunteering initiatives, a few of us set out again to help HomeStretch of Atlanta rehabilitate homes for the homeless. HomeStretch is a noble cause — they provide temporary housing for the homeless of Atlanta who are picking up the pieces of their lives and making a concerted effort to get back on track.  We first volunteered for HomeStretch back in the summer of 2010 and enjoyed it so much that we organized another trip.

Here is a short video of our experience.  What volunteering initiatives do you consider worthwhile in your community?:

If you plan on attending the 29th Annual American Payroll Association (APA) Congress this week in Salt Lake City, please stop by our Booth (#1019) to see firsthand how RightPunch PC-based biometric time clock identification technology can interface with your payroll software to help cut costs, increase efficiencies and boost productivity.  We will be showcasing fingerprint, finger vein and palm vein biometric technology with demos and plenty of experts on hand to answer your questions.

With the ability to now seamlessly interface with Kronos, ADP, TimeForce (Qqest), Empower and Insperity workforce management platforms, RightPunch is an affordable PC-based biometric time clock that has the potential to save 2%-4% of gross payroll.  Plus, it speeds up the check-in/check-out process to boost employee productivity and it is more safe and efficient than ID cards or personal identification numbers.  RightPunch also eliminates employee time theft, reported to cost U.S. companies nearly $400 billion per year.

The hallmark themes of the APA Congress are “Competence, Compliance, Community” so what better time to educate yourself on biometric technology, which ensures compliance with labor tracking laws and offers so many benefits and a strong potential to maximize your return on investment.

Take a look at this video to learn more about one of our customers who recently implemented RightPunch biometric identification with their Kronos time and attendance software to replace paper time sheets and instantly saw a 90% efficiency increase:

Although our blog is primarily focused on talking about biometrics and its practical applications in business, periodically we will take a break and focus on other topics that are important to M2SYS Technology.

As we have mentioned in previous blog posts the staff at M2SYS emphasizes the importance of volunteering as a way for us to help strengthen our community and build teamwork within our company. We understand that a quality company is only as good as the integrity of the people who work there and a community becomes stronger through volunteering for efforts that help make a difference.

Our staff is constantly searching for philanthropic initiatives with non-profit organizations within our community and after careful review of some upcoming opportunities, we decided to let you, our readers, decide what our next volunteering activity should be. So we set up a dedicated Web site and posted volunteering options with descriptions of the activity and a chance to vote on our next project.  We work closely with HandsOnAtlanta, a non-profit organization that helps individuals, families and corporate and community groups find flexible volunteering opportunities at more than 400 service organizations and schools.

Won’t you please take a moment to cast your vote and help us to identify our next corporate volunteering activity?  Thank you!

What are some volunteering activities that your company has been involved with and how do you feel that has made a difference in your community?