Item: HID DigitalPersona
Rating: 10
Author: Owen Heuston

Overall Satisfaction with HID DigitalPersona (formerly Crossmatch)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use DigitalPersona throughout the whole bank, from retail all the way to executives. It works for us because it allows the users to quickly log into machines by using the U.are.U.4500 biometric reader. The DigitalPersona software adds an extra layer of security where if a users' password was stolen, it is impossible to copy their fingerprint.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Provides an extra layer of security, each person has a unique fingerprint.
Allows users to quickly log in to or switch computers on the fly, much faster than typing in a password.
Can be used with all kinds of programs. We utilize it with any program that requires authentication, and you can modify the software to work with several applications.

Cons

I find that sometimes I have had to delete a users fingerprints and re-add them. There must be something going on where the software believes that the user has changed their fingerprints.
I have on occasion come across a person where the reader was unable to create fingerprints for that user. It would be interesting to see if the sensitivity of the 4500 reader could be improved on.
I find that using the DigitalPersona software makes the users ultimately forget their passwords. Maybe every once in a while the software could require the user to type in their Windows password to help them remember it.

Return on Investment

Provides a quick one finger authentication\log-on.
Logging onto a machine that is used by several other users, such as in retail is no problem because the DigitalPersona software does a switch user function instead of logging out the other user.
One negative that was apparent immediately after installing the DigitalPersona software was that users very easily forgot their Windows passwords because of the one finger log-on.

Alternatives Considered

We never looked at another solution. I did initially only have the software installed locally on certain test users machines, but after testing that for a couple of months, slowly rolled it out to all users. Users of course were skeptical at first, but after I demonstrated to them how easy it was to use, they were won over.

Likelihood to Recommend

It is great for Windows authentication and works with many other applications. In fact, the FDIC was here this past week and they were impressed in our utilization of the DigitalPersona software. It does add an extra level of security here at the bank and that is very important considering all of the financial data that we have here.

Comments

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Utilizing DigitalPersona at a financial institution