Biometrics industry is poised to grow

Newsday
Oct. 15, 2005

Four years ago, Mark Basile's house key broke in his door lock, and his son, 5 at the time, mentioned an idea Basile had toyed with: an electronic door lock secured by a fingerprint.

"He said, 'Dad, if you had one of your finger things, we could go right into the house,'" said Basile, 46, of Jericho, N.Y.

The next year, the former bankruptcy and commercial litigation lawyer founded BioMETRX Inc., which makes consumer devices that employ biometrics. Biometric devices mainly read fingerprints and irises to identify people.

Next month, HGTV will feature the company's first device: a garage door opener. This week, the network filmed 9-year-old Samantha Portillo using the BioMETRX garage door opener, which the Portillo family is testing. The segment of "I Want That!" will air in the first or second week of November.

Basile has his finger on the pulse of an industry that may blossom this decade, as fingerprint readers are no longer limited to corporations and top-secret government agencies. Lower prices for components, improvements in technology and increasing acceptance among the public will bring more biometric devices to consumers during the next decade, experts and industry executives said.

"The sensors have become cheaper, and the software has gotten feasible to run on a low-cost chip," said Jon Louis, chief executive of Bionopoly, a Mountain View, Calif., company that targets the consumer biometrics market. "The other reason is that the sort of Big Brother aspect of it has quickly faded."

The overall biometrics industry, mostly government and corporate applications, will generate a projected $1.5 billion in revenue worldwide this year and nearly $5.3 billion annually by 2010, said Brian Wong, senior consultant to International Biometric Group, which researches, consults and implements solutions in the biometrics field. The consumer biometrics market is in its infancy and statistics aren't available, Wong said.

Even among corporate and government applications, biometrics hasn't been a very profitable industry because it's still in its early stages, Wong said.

Nevertheless, companies are moving into the consumer market, focusing on fingerprint readers because the components are cheap and small.

IBM introduced the public to a biometric computer in commercials for a laptop accessible with the mere swipe of a finger.

Adel and Biocert Guardian locks secure doors with a touch. Pantech has a cell phone in which fingerprints provide secure access and allow speed dialing 10 numbers, each with a different finger. And a BioSaf safe doesn't require keys, just a fingerprint.

Other devices are in the works. BioMETRX, which went public as an over-the-counter stock by being acquired by a nonoperating publicly held company in June, plans to launch its devices under the smartTOUCH trademark, including a thermostat, gate opener, door locks and security alarm pad.

This week, Bionopoly introduced the Fingergear Computer-on-a-Stick. The USB flash drive secured by a fingerprint reader includes the Linux operating system, the Open Office productivity suite and the Firefox Web browser. The company also is looking into the production of a bicycle lock with a fingerprint reader powered by a rechargeable battery, with a wind-up charge as backup power.

A biometric car could prevent a thief or a child from driving it away, and even a lawn mower could benefit from biometric controls to prevent children from using it, said Richard L. Soloway, founder and chairman of Napco Security Systems, an Amityville alarm-system maker that has biometric alarm systems.

"Your mind boggles at how many different applications there are for security and safety using biometrics," he said.

Even with advancements in biometrics, about 15 percent of the public won't get an accurate reading because their fingerprints aren't unique enough, their fingers are too small or their fingers don't have enough moisture to be read, Soloway said.

"When biometric operation becomes close to 100-percent effective, then I would expect the consumer market to adopt it in a stronger way than they are now," he said.