Fingerprint Scanner

"Tony Toews [MVP]" <ttoews RemoveThis @telusplanet.net> wrote in message
news:a3ieb4h8dk2hm34sib8in6qlf8hp3f4atu@4ax.com...
> Doctor Dan <DoctorDan RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>>I have been asked to develop an application which uses the persons
>>fingerprint as his record identifier.
>
> You will need to use an API call as defined by the fingerprint scanner
> manufacturer. I'd start with them.
>
> BTW if I was an employee and your employer insisted on fingerprints
> I'd quit. <smile>
>
> Tony
> --
> Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
> Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
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I did some work on this a couple of years back. As you say, Tony, you have
to start with the vendor of the scanner, as the methods used to store the
fingerprint or the representation of the fingerprint will differ from one
vendor to another. As Fred says elsewhere in this thread, they don't
necessarily store the fingerprint itself. The one we used stored a
representation of the fingerprint using a one-way hashing algorithm, and the
vendor assured us that it was not possible to re-create the image of the
fingerprint from the stored data. To work with the data in Access, I had to
use a byte array.

We eventually shelved the project for two reasons. One, the scanners were
too slow for our purposes, and two, despite the fact that actual fingerprint
images were not stored, potential customers were still uncomfortable with
the idea of scanning fingerprints.

--
Brendan Reynolds