Better security at your fingertips
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
A new generation of highly sophisticated security systems has slowly been working its way into Hawai'i's business community, and the measures, which use computer technology to identify people, will take a big step toward wider public use when they are installed this month in the Davies Pacific Center in downtown Honolulu.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
Once the system is up and running, tenants' fingerprints will be their "key" to the building.
Rebeca Strasburger shows how a fingerprint reader will be used in a security identification system.
That's biometrics, an industry term for new security identification systems including voice recognition, fingerprint and iris scans, and hand and face geometry.
Although high-tech digital camera systems are showing up in upscale apartment buildings and office towers, the Davies Pacific Center will be the first large commercial building in Honolulu to install a biometric system. It will require tenants to place their hand in a scanner to have their fingerprints identified to access the building after hours.
The Honolulu Federal Detention Center, which opened last year, was one of the first to install a fingerprint access system to keep prisoners from stealing access cards and escaping. Maui County, Bank of Hawaii and Hawaiian Airlines are all experimenting with various types of biometric security systems.
Proponents say biometrics will eventually replace personal identification numbers, passwords and digital signatures as means of identification because of their relatively low cost and improved security.
Opponents say fingerprinting and eye scans are fine for prisons or private businesses, but in buildings occupied by dozens of different companies they are inappropriate and an invasion of privacy.
Biometrics is a growth industry, and several businesses have formed in recent years in Hawai'i to install the systems primarily in high-end homes and research and development firms that need extra security.
They say business is booming.
"I think most buildings are exploring the benefits of biometric systems as an alternative" to current systems, said Susan Hansen, president of the Building Owners and Managers Association's local chapter and Harbor Court building manager for CB Richard Ellis Hawai'i Inc. "Certainly after 9/11 more people are concerned about security, as rightly they should be."
Davies Pacific property manager Kirk Horiuchi with Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Inc. said the building has an old access card system and the new fingerprint system is bring installed to improve security and save the company from buying access cards for all 1,100 people who work there.
Experts say an access card system can cost from $50,000 to $150,000 depending on the size of the building. The three fingerprint readers for Davies Pacific and the software to run them cost $1,600 each. Davies Pacific is also installing a new digital security camera system with better storage and retrieval capabilities.
"It was time for an upgrade anyway and we looked at the options," Horiuchi said. "A lot of (tenants) are very eager about the upgraded technology."
But some tenants say being fingerprinted by building management is too much security and fear the prints could be accessed by the government at any time.
"I just don't like the idea of being fingerprinted to get into my building," said Elaine Shirley, who works in the building. "I don't feel like we need that much security."
It really has nothing to do with your fingerprint, said Jeff Wiebell, vice president of SecureView Systems, who is installing the Davies Pacific system.
"Once the fingerprint is scanned it is converted into connecting dots and the fingerprint is discarded," meaning it can't be brought up on a screen and compared to other fingerprints, Weibell said. "It is actually placing little dots at the ridges of the curves of your fingers. There is no record of a fingerprint anywhere."
Jon Van Dyke, a University of Hawai'i constitutional law professor, said although such systems may increase security, they dramatically reduce people's sense of privacy. Many people could be forced to comply with new security requirements against their will — or change jobs.
"This is a private owner, so normally constitutional issues don't apply," Van Dyke said. "But we know how easy it is for the government to subpoena records these days given the national security claims that are being made so frequently now. The fear that these records will be made available to the government is well founded.
"I would say it raises profound issues that ought to be widely debated. My question is, is this really necessary given the level of intrusion into privacy that it involves? If there is an alternative approach, why not just use the alternative?"
Horiuchi said he understands that some tenants do not want to be fingerprinted and they will not be forced to.
"We'll have a backup for tenants who refuse," Horiuchi said. "They will get a card. I talked to another (manager) who decided to stick with cards partially because of concerns about the fingerprints. Because it is the first one here, there is a lot of apprehension about it."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.
