One of the latest buzzwords that came out of this recent recession amongst small-medium business owners is buddy punching. As businesses were looking for ways to shred overhead costs, many took the easiest route with layoffs and reducing payroll hours. One of the trends that many businesses identified was buddy punching.

How is buddy punching defined?

Buddy punching is the term for when a worker has a friend or another coworker punch their time card for them allowing them to add increased 'worked hours' to their time card.

Buddy punching can occur for employers who use electronic based or PIN based time and attendance systems. In fact, a very recent study of SMBs showed that a shockingly high percentage either knew their colleagues digital password or admitted to punching a friends PIN in on their behalf.

Fingerprint time attendance system became one of another top buzzwords amongst small-medium business owners. They perceived fingerprint time attendance as the most affordable ways to eliminate buddy punching.

Can fingerprint prevent buddy punching as desired?

A Study from China Human Resource Published this:

Since fingerprint time attendance system was introduced to businesses. More than 70% small-medium businesses made a decision to adopt fingerprint system to avoid buddy punching. CHR has conducted a survey over 126 small-medium businesses for the virtual value of adopting fingerprint system to avoid buddy punching with below results:

Fingerprint system helps to decrease buddy punching, but not the ultimate solution as buddy punching can still occurs for several condition:

• Back up fingerprint registration enables buddy punching. As the quality of fingerprint will affected by a lot of factors like with cold, wet, worn, dirty, elder, all fingerprint terminals require back up registration during enrollment process. It means buddy registration may happen as back up registration always requiring 2 or 3 fingerprints to be enrolled. 23 companies reported to CHR that they are facing buddy registration for time attendance.



• Silicac gel fingerprint fakes fingerprint terminals easy. A fake finger could be made with silica gel simply, the cost is very low. 79 companies reported to CHR, It applies to both white collar and blue collar employees.

Which biometric technology could be the ultimate solution for avoiding buddy punching? Look at Face ID, the Ultimate Solution for Data Collection of Time Attendance Management.

Face ID, the industry first embedded facial recognition system with leading “Dual Sensor™” Facial Recognition Algorithm, which designed for application like physical access control and time attendance, identity management. Face ID has gained very good reputation from end users, system integrators, and partners.

Hanvon Technology (SZSE: 002362), a world leader of developing Handwriting Recognition, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and Biometric Recognition related technology and products, released its unique and innovative Face ID in late 2008, over 30,000 units have been installed worldwide till March 31, 2010.