What is Biometric attendance?

Definition

Biometric attendance verifies identity at the moment of the punch using a physical characteristic such as a fingerprint or a face, at a device installed at the workplace.

How it works

Biometrics answer a specific question well: is this really that person. That makes them the right control for proxy attendance where everybody arrives at one entrance. They answer nothing about location, so for staff who never pass a fixed device they solve the wrong problem.

What it means in India

Biometric data is sensitive personal information, and Indian data protection obligations apply to collecting and storing it, including the requirement to collect only what is necessary and to secure it. Shared-device biometrics also became operationally awkward during the pandemic, which is part of why phone-based location verification spread in Indian small business.

What people get wrong

• Buying a fixed device for a workforce that is not at a fixed place. A perfect face match proves nothing about a technician who should have been at a customer site.
• Storing raw biometric templates without a clear necessity, retention limit and security control.

Terms this one depends on

More on attendance and shifts

Where this shows up in practice

Almost everything on this page ends up as a line on a payslip or a figure in a register. Shiftelio keeps attendance, leave, salary structure and the statutory deductions in one place, so the number in the letter and the number in the payslip come from the same record.