IR Recognition Systems, the biometric component of Ingersoll-Rand's (IR) Security & Safety Group's Electronic Access Control Division (EACD), announced today that Covenant Aviation Security, a private company that was awarded a Transportation Security Administration contract to protect San Francisco Airport, the nation's fifth busiest, from terrorism, is using biometric HandReaders to verify employee identities before granting them access to their work areas.

HandReaders automatically take a three-dimensional reading of the size and shape of a hand and verify the user's identity in less than one second. Hand geometry is the most commonly used technology for access control and time and attendance, according to Frost and Sullivan's ``World Biometrics Report.''

``After Covenant Aviation Security was awarded the TSA's private passenger screening contract at San Francisco International Airport in October of 2002, it was crucial to have a system in place that accurately and consistently identified our more than 1,200 employees arriving and departing work every day,'' explains Tom Long, Executive Vice President of Covenant. ``Since day one, our IR Recognition Systems' biometric HandPunch 4000 has provided us with a quality product that we will continue to depend on at San Francisco International Airport.''

HandReaders handle any population volume with ease while providing impeccable reliability. With dramatically lower false reject and failure to enroll rates than other biometric technologies, the value of HandReaders grows as the number of users and/or transactions increases. With so many people working at San Francisco Airport, HandReaders were essential.

Covenant employees perform all the functions provided by regular TSA employees at other airports, including screening passengers, running X-ray machines, checking baggage, and manning security checkpoints. Before beginning their shifts, employees must pass through an area where their identities are checked with HandReaders.

``Ensuring that employees are who they say they are is critical to securing the airport,'' explains James Wendt, co-owner of Time & Technology (Neenah, Wis.), which specializes in biometric time and attendance and security solutions. ``We pushed strongly for the use of hand geometry at the airport because we've been using it since the late '80s and its track record is just phenomenal.''