Single-factor identification insufficient for licit opiate industry

It is hard to overestimate the lengths drug addicts will go through to get a fix. They will lie, cheat, and steal, and that’s just from their mothers. For those few companies legally engaged in the production of opiates, the threat of unauthorized access is ever-present, and failure means much more than another junkie getting high. It could mean losing exclusive government licenses.

For its new Concentrate of Poppy Straw manufacturing plant in Northern Tasmania, TPI Enterprises is going all out to enforce security. Single-factor identification no longer will do. “After 10 years experience in the licit opiate industry,” says one executive, “I know that proximity cards or pin number doors are not the ideal solution.” Iris scan biometrics is much safer, the company believes, and it contracted with Argus Solutions to provide it. Argus’s Cornerstone Identity Management software, also deployed in prisons in Melbourne and Mexico, integrates more than 150 biometric devices for an almost infinite number of security options.

The technology costs $6 per person per month.

-read more in Sandra Rossi’s Computer World Australia report; company Web sites TPI Industries | Argus Solutions