Biometric cabinet locks or smart cabinet locks are devices that allow you to unlock your cabinet with the combination of a fingerprint and PIN.
Biometric cabinet locks use personally identifiable information instead of traditional keys. They use a thermal or optical scanner to store the fingerprints of anyone who is authorised to open your locker. Once the scanner determines that you are an authorised user, it prompts you to enter a PIN to unlock the locker.
How does biometric lock work?
Biometric terminology refers to the use of physical characteristics to identify a person. Biometric scanning has been around for quite some time. Most people are familiar with its existence from seeing it in spy movies when a character scans their hand or eyes to open a door. Common features used for biometrics are fingerprints, retina or iris structures, facial recognition or hand geometry. The most common biometric used for gun safes is the fingerprint, which cannot be imitated or stolen in the same way as a gun security code.
Potential problems with biometric lock
Biometrics may seem secure on the surface. After all, you're the only one with ears, eyes and fingerprints. But this is not necessarily more secure than a password. Passwords are essentially private because you are the only person who knows them. Of course, hackers can access it through brute force attacks or phishing, but generally speaking, people can't access it. Biometrics, on the other hand, are inherently public. Whenever you look at something, you reveal your eyes. With fingerprint recognition, wherever you go, you leave your fingerprints behind. With voice recognition, someone is recording your voice. Essentially, all these identifiers can be accessed easily.
Once a hacker has a picture of someone's ear, eye or finger, they can easily access their account.As biometrics reveals a part of the user's identity, if stolen it can be used to forge legal documents, passports or criminal records, which can cause more damage than a stolen credit card number.