Biometric security devices have remarkably replaced the manual guarding system and mechanical locks to control physical access at various susceptible places. Especially, after threatening and devastating terrorist attacks, it is important to ensure that only authorized users are allowed to access places like airports, banks and government buildings. Moreover, physical access control in an organization is of great significance to avoid loss or theft of information and inventory. Keeping all this things in mind, constant research has given birth to biometrics with impressive application in this direction.

Computers and networks can be attacked by intruders and people with bad intentions and the reasons can be different. Stealing information, hacking passwords, misusing network resources and inducing viruses - your computers and networks need to be protected from unauthorized access. Biometric aided PC and network access control is what can work efficiently at homes as well as at organizational level. Various biometric techniques ensure that every login to PC and network is authorized by carrying out the process of biometric identification.

Keeping track of time and attendance of employees in an organization is important for optimal utilization of working hours, payroll and various resources. With advent of biometric time and attendance clocks, employee management has become easier than before. Manual attendance maintenance is completely outdated and mechanical time and attendance systems are becoming untrustworthy with constant cases of tampering from employees. In such a situation, fingerprint attendance clocks are bound to become popular among organization owners.

Computers and laptops are often protected using passwords. But is this a full-proof security method. Passwords and other keys used to login to a computer can be stolen, making password management a difficult practice. However, biometrics is the latest buzzword, which can serve the solution to this problem, by offering a solution in the form of biometric logical access. Various devices like fingerprint reader are integrated with keyboards mouse or in the form of stand alone applications to allow only authorized user to access the computers.

While biometrics applications were devised to authorize the employees of an organization, the technology has extended its reach to industries, where this type of authorization is required for other users as well. Financial or transactional services industry is an example, where biometrics identification facilitates employees as well as the customers. Needless to say, the services like banking, e-commerce, credit cards and ATM requires sophisticated security measure and biometrics replaces all other options to achieve success.

After successfully establishing its reputation in various industries, biometric applications have been prepared to entertain sensitive security needs of healthcare industry. The existence of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is appreciable in benefiting patients during emergency situations. Further success is achieved by combining biometrics and HIPAA to create a full proof beneficial system in hospitals and clinics.

When biometrics is proving its worth in different fields and industries, how can we neglect biometrics applications in law enforcement and criminal justice system? In fact, this is the field, which has contributed towards the idea of devising biometric identification using physical traits like fingerprints of different individuals. As a result, the technology is growing with leaps and bounds to facilitate this field in most appreciable manner. Here is a discussion to prove this point.

Illegitimate immigrations through international borders has been reported a number of times. And, how can we ignore the constant security threats at places like airports? The good news is that biometrics applications have given a reason to relax about these two issues of concern. While use of biometrics for border control is restraining the unauthorized immigrations, the technology has also secured the environment at international airports to keep a watch on terrorism.

Devices like laptops, PDA, flash drives and others are becoming the part and parcel of every individual. However, the access control issues related to them have also grown at equivalent rate. Cases like loss of data, introduction of viruses and unauthorized logins have frustrated the authorized users of these devices. Similarly, housebreaks, car thefts and other activities have shown a rise with the passage of time.