BiometricsU.K. nursery chain install biometric access control

A £500,000 biometric fingerprint entry security system is to be installed at the Busy Bees children’s nurseries chain. The system from UK Biometrics will allow parents and care-givers easy access to the nurseries while ensuring unauthorised people cannot gain entry. UK Biometrics has been trialling the system at fourteen Busy Bees nurseries for more than a year. The new biometric locks allow Busy Bees personnel to register parents’ and care-givers’ fingerprints in seconds. Once registered, parents press their fingerprint onto a sensor pad at the door and gain immediate entry. Un-registered visitors ring the bell and wait for a member of staff to admit them. The new system will allow staff to spend more time with the children at busy drop-off and collection times, rather than answering the door to parents. The multi-spectral scanner identifies key points on the user’s fingerprint, and scans sub-dermal ridges making it impossible to fake fingerprints, said UK Biometrics. No actual fingerprint is stored and the encrypted data is held only by individual nurseries. It is impossible to reproduce a fingerprint, or any part of a fingerprint from data stored, the supplier said.

Busy Bees regional director Carole Chadderton said, “We are always looking at ways of improving the quality of our nurseries, and security for the children and staff is a prime concern. We have worked closely with UK Biometrics and their access system will enable us to maintain high security standards throughout our nurseries.”