Despite optical sensors apparently better performance, silicon sensors have the security advantage and probably will prevail in the future. They re faster, safer and smaller small enough, for example, to interface with wireless phones or handheld computers. The drawback to silicon sensors is fragility. Static electricity on a fingertip could fry a chip. So could slight taps on the fingerprint reader.
Optical chips are more durable.
The Touchstone Pro s silicon chip even got warm enough to notice under the reader. It will take time for both the technology and the price of silicon sensor fingerprint devices to improve. High-security government installations are using more sophisticated and costly forms of biometric authentication security for members of groups. But for individual user authentication, the devices now available are still untrustworthy. That s changing for fingerprint recognition, the most common form of biometric authentication.