About Cherry Electrical Products
Cherry Electrical Products is a global leader in the design, development, and manufacture of computer keyboards and mice.
Cherry’s advanced performance computer keyboards feature integrated magnetic stripe and/or smartcard readers and fingerprint recognition devices, helping organisations increase the efficiency and security of their transaction processing systems. With its presence in thousands of retail, healthcare and government locations, Cherry is positioned as a cutting-edge keyboard supplier among the independent peripheral vendors. Cherry sets the pace for new interface and device support such as USB, OPOS/JPOS, smart card and fingerprint technology.
Biometrics background
Although biometrics appears to be new technology, in fact it’s been in use for thousands of years and in fact, used daily in our lives. We often recognise people by their walk, their look or their sound – this in itself is a form of biometric. The term biometric is taken from latin – bios and metron = Life Measurement – and it’s meaning is the science of identifying a person by a unique physical, biological or chemical attribute.
Recognition Methods
Whilst there is a plethora of biometric recognition methods available, it’s very difficult to incorporate these into our biometric products. Hand geometry, facial, gait (walk), vascular and DNA, for instance are intrusive and may require large devices to function. Here at Cherry, because of the devices they’re incorporated into and the applications they’re used for, we concentrate on fingerprint biometrics.
Software
Although we include the capture device, this has to be coupled with a software application that can process the data and verify or identify the user. For this,we partner
BMS– www.bms-it.co.uk - their product, SentriNet has been used by Cherry for a number of years.
BioScrypt – www.bioscrypt.com - their product, the Verisoft Access Manager, has been used for the last year and recently received an excellent review in SC Magazine.
Please visit their websites above for more detailed information on their features.
Biometric Myths…
The common misconceptions are that:
‘Biometrics is a new technology’ – as shown above, it’s been with us for thousands of years and the technology around today is an advancement of techniques.
‘Dead body parts can be used fool biometrics’ – Not so. Dead body parts change characteristics after a short period, so can’t be used.
‘Fingerprints could be used in criminal investigations and therefore an infringement of civil liberties’ – Again, not so. Fingerprint recognition systems rely on a mathematical representation of a finger, not an image. It’s like trying to create a map of the UK from 50 reference points – impossible.
‘Biometrics is the answer to security’ – this depends on the accuracy of an organisation or country enrolling it’s users/members. If the enrolment is carried out correctly and users are unequivocally proved to be whom they actually are, then this gives a good bais for security. But, it will not mean that a person is or isn’t a criminal or terrorist. If biometric data is tagged as being from a criminal or terrorist, then a system will be able to identify this person from a database and identify them when they go through a control point.
Considerations for choosing biometric types
The selection of a certain type of biometric technology for an application, depends on various factors. Some of which are as follows:
Cost of Equipment – dependent upon type chosen, this can be costly for both hardware and software.
Size of Equipment – for PC usage, especially laptops, equipment for methods like hand geometry may be far too large to cope with.
Type – in some applications it may be necessary to capture data without the knowledge of the recipient. In this case, facial or gait may be more suitable.
Ruggedness – is the device to be used for door access, therefore open to the elements?
Compliance – does the device have to be accredited? AFIS or FIPS-201 compliant for instance?
Cherry’s Devices
For a compact desktop solution, cherry has recognised that many users do not want another USB device on their desktop, so have integrated biometrics into both mice and keyboards.
When selecting a biometric device for integration within their keyboard or mouse range, Cherry needed to consider a number of points:
1) The device has to be small
2) Cost effective
3) Widely supported by biometric software applications
4) Market leaders in their field
5) Be able to capture a suitable biometric template for PC Log-on
The only really suitable biometric for desktop security is fingerprint, as the devices are small enough to be integrated into Cherry products, are of suitable price and provide reliable and accurate biometric capture and match when used with partner software.
UPEK devices can be found in our G83-14401/14501 and the new M-4200 mouse.
Authentec devices can be found in our G83-14201/14301 and G83-14601/14701 keyboards.
For more information on our products, please visit our website – www.cherry.co.uk or call us on 01582 506140.
Cherry Electrical Products
Unit L, Airport Executive Park
President Way
Luton
Beds
LU2 9NY 
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