04 October 2005
OPINION: Biometrics
WINDOWS
Gabriel L. Cardinoza
TWO weeks from now, city hall employees will have to queue up before a computer terminal four times a day to time in and to time out.
This is because the city government has acquired five biometrics-based timekeeping devices that will require each employee to have one of his or her fingers scanned for the computer to register the actual time the employee arrived in or left the city hall.
Biometrics (b?´´?-met´riks), according to Webopedia (www.webopedia.com), an online encyclopedia dedicated to computer technology, is an authentication technique that relies on a person’s measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked.
These physical characteristics could be the person’s face, fingerprint, hand geometry, retina, iris, signature, vein, and voice.
At the city hall, the biometric system will make use of an employee’s fingerprint. The computer first reads the employee’s fingerprint from a scanner; identifies the employee and registers the exact time he or she arrived in or left the office.
The new timekeeping system will now throw away the blue logbooks, where many employees have been writing for years 8:00 a.m. or 5:00 p.m., when they actually arrived in their respective offices at 9:30 a.m., or have left their workstations before 5:00 p.m.
It will also effectively eliminate the bad practice of some employees timing in or out for their officemates, even if that officemate actually reported in the afternoon or did not report at all.
Noting this habitual tardiness and the blatant falsification of daily time records, it was actually Mayor Benjamin Lim who first announced the use of biometrics in the city hall many months ago.
But it was Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez, while the acting city mayor last week, who ordered the immediate purchase of these devices.
The vice mayor knew too well what biometrics can do in ensuring that employees report to work on time. In the entire city hall complex, the Sangguniang Panlungsod has been using the computerized device from the time the mayor made the announcement and this has produced good results, in terms of the SP employees’ work efficiency.
Since then, when somebody calls the SP office at 8:00 a.m. someone decisive is already there to answer the phone. And when somebody comes to the SP office as early as 8:00 a.m. to transact business, someone is already there to attend to him or her.
From the SP experience, the new system is foolproof, in the sense that the data could not be tampered. But some employees still have a way of dealing with it: some come to the office very early and still in their shorts to time in and just arrive in the office by noon to time out.
But the vice mayor could not be outwitted: He installed closed-circuit cameras that would record the day’s office scene to easily identify employees who just time in and then go home.
This meant certainly meant additional expenses using people’s money. But this was a good buy and a sound investment at that. After all, it is the people in the end who will benefit from the improved quality in the delivery of services at the city hall.
QUICKNOTES: The Pangasinan Star now has a website (http://www.freewebs.com/pangasinanstar). But we still maintain our blog (http://pangasinanstar.blogspot.com), because it is here where we keep our archives… Suddenly, I don’t feel safe in Pangasinan. With the rash of highway robbery and killings in the past weeks, I suddenly realized I am not safe right in my own backyard. And I’d like to quote what the late Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez said when he survived an ambush in the mid-70’s: “What’s happening to our country, General?”
QUICKQUOTE: Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. -- Abraham Lincoln
(You can reach Gabriel L. Cardinoza at windows@digitelone.com)
Gabriel L. Cardinoza
TWO weeks from now, city hall employees will have to queue up before a computer terminal four times a day to time in and to time out.
This is because the city government has acquired five biometrics-based timekeeping devices that will require each employee to have one of his or her fingers scanned for the computer to register the actual time the employee arrived in or left the city hall.
Biometrics (b?´´?-met´riks), according to Webopedia (www.webopedia.com), an online encyclopedia dedicated to computer technology, is an authentication technique that relies on a person’s measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked.
These physical characteristics could be the person’s face, fingerprint, hand geometry, retina, iris, signature, vein, and voice.
At the city hall, the biometric system will make use of an employee’s fingerprint. The computer first reads the employee’s fingerprint from a scanner; identifies the employee and registers the exact time he or she arrived in or left the office.
The new timekeeping system will now throw away the blue logbooks, where many employees have been writing for years 8:00 a.m. or 5:00 p.m., when they actually arrived in their respective offices at 9:30 a.m., or have left their workstations before 5:00 p.m.
It will also effectively eliminate the bad practice of some employees timing in or out for their officemates, even if that officemate actually reported in the afternoon or did not report at all.
Noting this habitual tardiness and the blatant falsification of daily time records, it was actually Mayor Benjamin Lim who first announced the use of biometrics in the city hall many months ago.
But it was Vice Mayor Alvin Fernandez, while the acting city mayor last week, who ordered the immediate purchase of these devices.
The vice mayor knew too well what biometrics can do in ensuring that employees report to work on time. In the entire city hall complex, the Sangguniang Panlungsod has been using the computerized device from the time the mayor made the announcement and this has produced good results, in terms of the SP employees’ work efficiency.
Since then, when somebody calls the SP office at 8:00 a.m. someone decisive is already there to answer the phone. And when somebody comes to the SP office as early as 8:00 a.m. to transact business, someone is already there to attend to him or her.
From the SP experience, the new system is foolproof, in the sense that the data could not be tampered. But some employees still have a way of dealing with it: some come to the office very early and still in their shorts to time in and just arrive in the office by noon to time out.
But the vice mayor could not be outwitted: He installed closed-circuit cameras that would record the day’s office scene to easily identify employees who just time in and then go home.
This meant certainly meant additional expenses using people’s money. But this was a good buy and a sound investment at that. After all, it is the people in the end who will benefit from the improved quality in the delivery of services at the city hall.
QUICKNOTES: The Pangasinan Star now has a website (http://www.freewebs.com/pangasinanstar). But we still maintain our blog (http://pangasinanstar.blogspot.com), because it is here where we keep our archives… Suddenly, I don’t feel safe in Pangasinan. With the rash of highway robbery and killings in the past weeks, I suddenly realized I am not safe right in my own backyard. And I’d like to quote what the late Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez said when he survived an ambush in the mid-70’s: “What’s happening to our country, General?”
QUICKQUOTE: Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. -- Abraham Lincoln
(You can reach Gabriel L. Cardinoza at windows@digitelone.com)
