Research Suggests Biometric Identification Could Improve Pediatric Care

One of the world’s most renowned biometrics experts is championing the use of fingerprint recognition in pediatric care.

In a recent study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Michigan State University professor Anil Jain lead a research team to see if they could accurately identify six-month old babies using fingerprint biometrics. Their results indicate that it can be done, with the team achieving 99 percent accuracy based on subjects’ thumbprints. Now, the team is preparing for further annual studies for the next four years to see how reliable these biometric profiles could be over time.

As MSU Today reports, this kind of biometric identification could have a considerable impact in pediatric health, with one India-based NGO leader attesting that “[t]he impact of child fingerprinting will be enormous in improving lives of the disadvantaged” by helping to accurately track vaccinations and other important medical records over time, since they would be linked directly to an individual’s biometrics, and not through paper records that can be easily lost or destroyed.

In India, where professor Jain was born, such efforts are already underway thanks to the country’s ambitious biometric national ID program, Aadhaar. The government has begun trialling the issuance of Aadhaar IDs to infants at birth, and if it’s able to accurately connect those IDs to biometric data from an early age—as the research of Jain’s team suggests—it could make a considerable impact in the country’s pediatric care, and could serve as an example to other care providers around the world, from governments to NGOs.

Source: MSU Today

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September 23, 2016 – by Alex Perala