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A person demonstrates the use of the HandKey security hand recognition system at a gate in the Hydro-Quebec Gentilly-2 nuclear station.
CAMPBELL, Calif., Aug. 22, 2002 -- Hydro-Quebec's Gentilly-2 nuclear generating station has a new security system that authenticates access from the size and shape of the hand, replacing keys, cards or codes.
IR Recognition Systems, the biometric component of Ingersoll-Rand's (IR) Security & Safety Group's Electronic Access Control Division (EACD), recently announced that Hydro-Quebec's Gentilly-2 nuclear generating station is enforcing security, physically restricting non-qualified, non-trained personnel from hazardous zones, and implementing a log of personnel and visitors' comings and goings with the company's HandKey hand geometry readers.
HandKey readers, which positively authenticate users by the shape and size of their hands, not their keys, cards or codes, are used at all entrance turnstiles, the exit turnstiles and boundaries of administration/production radiological zones.
"Every employee, even the chairman of Hydro-Quebec himself, as well as visitors to the facility, have to enroll on the HandKey to be admitted to the site," explains Louis Rivard, IT Systems Designer at the Gentilly-2 station.
"We chose hand geometry for its ease of use, reliability, and high accuracy. Also, versus making our people have to give their fingerprints and/or being forced to have retinal scans, the hand geometry approach was the easiest to introduce. In fact, at implementation, the employee response was excellent."
According to Rivard, the Canadian jurisdictional authority in nuclear matters was very satisfied with Gentilly-2's initiative to improve its security with such a technological approach. The generating station was able to provide better compliance, easing the renewal of their operations permit.
"We are now in a pre-project to upgrade our system," Rivard adds. "Hand geometry will remain our major biometric approach to authenticate people."
IR Recognition HandKey hand geometry readers are a high security mainstay of the U.S. nuclear plant industry, used on 97 of 103 facilities.
About IR Recognition Systems
With over 60,000 hand geometry units throughout the world reading millions of hands each day, IR Recognition Systems, founded in 1986, is the pioneer of hand recognition technology used in access control, time and attendance and identification applications.
The company is a worldwide seller of biometric verification devices and serves an international clientele from its headquarters in Campbell, Calif. The hand geometry website is www.handreader.com.
Recognition Systems is the biometric component of Ingersoll-Rand Corporation's Security & Safety Group's Electronic Access Control Division. The Ingersoll-Rand website is www.irco.com.
SOURCE: IR Recognition Systems
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A close-up of the HandKey II security hand recognition system.
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