Edge Biometrics Combined with Mobile Credential Technology to improve Access Control

Edge Biometrics Combined with Mobile Credential Technology to improve Access Control

Recently, the SPA Team had the opportunity to interview Reza Rassool, CTO of RealNetworks, who shared his thoughts on combining Edge Biometrics with Mobile Technology, as a means of creating more effective Access Control.

“We have come to expect that enhanced security entails further inconvenience for visitors hoping to be authenticated at an entrance. Long lines and onerous credential checks have become the new normal for a generation. Recent advances in biometric authentication at the edge are set to transform access control, strengthening security, reducing cost, and dramatically upgrading the user experience.”

Two trends have converged to make futuristic access control a reality.

The first is technological – biometric analysis can now be performed at the edge in real time. The second is social – a new generation, comfortable with unlocking their phones with their face, shopping with mobile payments, but cautious of queueing with strangers in a post-pandemic world. The expectation of modern consumers is dragging the very conservative physical access control industry into a new era.

While consumers have become used to biometrics running at the edge on their smartphones, the access control industry is still dominated by solutions using IP cameras that feed cloud-based analysis. The move towards edge-based processing delivers the following benefits:

  • Faster processing times: No cloud round trip latency, enables smarter adaptation to local conditions for tracking and liveness detection.
  • Improved privacy and security: Lower risk of data including PII being intercepted in transit.
  • Reduced bandwidth usage: Cloud traffic is reduced, saving costs and improving network efficiency.
  • Offline functionality: Authentication even if the device the Internet connection is down.
  • Improved accuracy: Locally processing the uncompressed pixels improves accuracy in biometric recognition. Contrast with dumb IP cameras streaming compressed RTSP stream to be processed in the cloud. Edge biometrics supplies more accurate and reliable authentication and lowers the false rejection rate.
  • Scalable architecture: Processing is distributed, rather than centralized on a single point of failure. Adding more devices does not impose a proportionate load on operations nor degrade performance. Scalability is particularly important where many users must be authenticated simultaneously, like mass transit systems or event venues.
  • Simple Installation: Install edge biometric solutions is easier and more cost effective because there is no need to provision or wire to a processing server. Optionally, device relays can be wired directly to the magnetic/electric lock, enabling the option to eliminate the access control panel.

Find out more about Edge Biometrics and the importance of smooth access control on the SAFR from RealNetworks website. Get up to date with the Security Professionals Association at the website www.sira.gov.ae or reach out at spa@sira.gov.ae.