The University of Nottingham is set to launch a biometric pilot using fingerprint technology to facilitate student registration and attendance at mandatory lectures and exams.

Beginning with the coming academic year, the university will install 40 fingerprint units and 15 USB enrollment readers from Swiss biometrics vendor, TBS. The fingerprint readers are developed by TBS and are fully integrated with Nedap’s AEOS platform -- the university’s current physical access control system. AEOS is a software-based security management platform that integrates and controls functionality for access control, intrusion detection, video surveillance and locker management.

“The high-end fingerprint identification technology developed by TBS is an excellent extension of our AEOS platform," says Jeroen Harmsen, Director of Product Management at Nedap Security Management. "The two systems can be seamlessly integrated, so our client - or its students - do not experience any inconvenience during or after the implementation process.”

Provided the pilot is deemed successful, a full-scale rollout will follow that will equip all 500 classrooms at the university's flagship UK campus with the fingerprint identification system.

The University of Nottingham expects that the new fingerprint system will provide 100% assurance that students have actually attended a lecture or participated in an exam. This is valuable information for the university, as it not only provides more thorough insight into student participation, but it will also help mitigate any fraud associated with false attendance and ID verification.