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Published on March 7, 2008

Before gaining entry to a pub, one has to display an identification card. However, the next time just your finger will do.

A new technology using a fingerprint scan has been developed to help verify the age of pub patrons.

The technology has been launched by Diageo Moet Hennessy (Thailand), a leading importer and distributor of premium alcoholic beverages, which was formerly known as Riche Monde (Bangkok).

The company's vice president of marketing, Zanita Kajiji, said the project involved establishing fingerprint scan kiosks at the gates of popular pubs. The kiosk will be used by pubs to verify that their patrons' age is above 20 - the legal requirement to enter a pub.

The kiosk machine is designed to record the customer's basic personal information such as first name, last name, address, and most importantly, date of birth. The kiosk is equipped with magnetic card reader, camera and fingerprint scanner.

The system requires a first-time registration for which the customer's identification card is scanned and the information on it is read. Next, the camera clicks an image of the ID card. Lastly, the machine scans the index finger of the right hand. In all, three types of information - personal details, picture and fingerprint - are collected, encrypted and transmitted to the company's server. The process takes only a few seconds.

 Zanita said that the next time the customer visits the pub, instead of displaying his ID card, he just needs to get a fingerprint scan which works as verification. The machine matches his fingerprint scan with the one in the database and verifies the age of the patron.

 "The application is designed to reject registration of people of age under 20, even if they are 19 years and 11 months old," Zanita said.

 The kiosks will be connected via a virtual private network to the company's server, which is hosted at True Internet.

"All the customer information in different pubs will be kept in the same database server. If that person goes to another pub, they will not need to register again," Zanita said.

 She said registration had to be on a voluntary basis because it involves giving out personal information and invokes privacy rights.

Twenty machines were used for the three-month trial at 12 pubs in the Thonglor-Ekamai area. The pubs include Hype, Escudo, Song Sa-leung, Y50, We-za, Blog 9, Zantika, Booze, Gigabyte, Jet and Curve.

The company will select its partner pubs on the basis of customer volume.

"We have got a good response. The customers are willing to use this process, as it is so convenient and trendy. Thailand is the first country in which we have launched the fingerprint-scan project," Zanita said.

From the 12 pubs participating in the trial, the company received registrations from 20,000 people or 60 per cent of total customers. The company wants to encourage 100-per-cent participation from the pubs' customers.

The firm plans to roll out the Bt50-million project across 100 pubs in the country by year-end. It will bear the cost of installing the kiosk, the virtual private network and maintaining the server.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation