KFC Restaurants Across the U.S. Serve Up Loss Prevention With DigitalPersona Fingerprint Biometrics

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Sept. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- DigitalPersona, Inc., a global provider of authentication and endpoint protection solutions, today announced that many KFC restaurants owned by the chain's franchisees are improving their loss prevention programs with DigitalPersona® fingerprint biometrics. Two such KFC franchisees, West Quality Food Service, Inc. and KBP Foods, are using DigitalPersona U.are.U® Fingerprint Readers, which are now available through the franchise's central purchasing co-op, in restaurants across the Midwest and Southeast. They added the DigitalPersona biometrics to their existing NCR Advanced Restaurant (formerly Compris) point-of-sale (POS) software in order to eliminate the need for personal identification numbers (PINs) and to hold employees as well as managers more accountable. Both franchisees have seen an immediate reduction in payroll fraud and unauthorized transactions, resulting in improved operations and profits.

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Employees at these KFC restaurants previously used PINs at point-of-sale terminals to access time-and-attendance systems, while managers used PINs to authorize discounts, voids and overrides. Unfortunately, employees were able to share PINs to inappropriately clock one another in, boosting labor costs. Similarly, staff could secretly use managers' PINs to authorize fraudulent transactions, driving up the cost of food. Since integrating DigitalPersona fingerprint biometrics with each store's POS software, the franchisees have significantly raised individual accountability by tying transactions to the specific employee that performed them.  Biometrics has proven to be a strong deterrent that has eliminated buddy punching and reduced the number of unauthorized transactions.  

"When using PINs, it is difficult for a restaurant to quantify the impact of unauthorized transactions," said Mike Servolini, Director – South Operations at West Quality Food Service. "With the DigitalPersona fingerprint solution, we have been able to track each manager's and employee's actions more closely, and have recognized a near-immediate reduction in food costs. This is directly attributed to the elimination of false voids and overrides."

"Buddy punching is completely gone from our stores now that we've switched to DigitalPersona fingerprint biometrics," said Chris Elwood, Area Coach, Omaha for KBP Foods. "Everyone is required to use their fingerprint to get into our systems, and anyone clocking in early or staying late has to get a manager's fingerprint for approval. This gives us peace of mind that our labor costs are accurate."

DigitalPersona U.are.U fingerprint readers have been integrated into more than 90 percent of the biometrically-enabled POS systems in the U.S. and are supported by a variety of commercial POS applications. DigitalPersona fingerprint readers enable restaurants and retailers to transition away from swipe cards and PINs, which can be easily lost, stolen or shared. In contrast, biometrics ties individuals to the actions they perform, providing a powerful deterrent to time-and-attendance and management-override fraud. Fingerprint biometrics also makes it easier for businesses to address the stringent Payment Card Industry (PCI) mandates for strong identity security controls and can improve productivity as well as customer response times by simplifying and speeding up system login.

"Fingerprint biometrics is emerging as the authentication method of choice for quick-serve restaurants," said Jim Fulton, vice president of marketing at DigitalPersona. "Fingerprint readers are a mature, reliable technology that can be deployed quickly and easily, enabling ROI to begin immediately.  Our fingerprint readers have been known to pay for themselves in as little as four weeks."

About DigitalPersona

DigitalPersona, Inc. is a global provider of strong authentication and endpoint protection solutions that close the gap between people and security for enterprises, government agencies and commercial embedded-solution developers. The company's fingerprint biometrics technology helps organizations prevent fraud and increase accountability; it is incorporated into multiple national voting systems, almost all brands of biometrically-enabled point-of-sale (POS) stations, as well as many commercial applications in the retail, healthcare, and financial industries. DigitalPersona's data and access protection software is shipped by computer manufacturers on millions of notebooks and desktop computers per year; its cloud- and Active Directory-managed solutions for full disk encryption, multi-factor/strong authentication and single sign-on (SSO) password management simplify compliance and cut IT costs. For more information contact DigitalPersona, Inc. at: +1 650.474.4000, or visit www.digitalpersona.com.

© 2011 DigitalPersona, Inc. All rights reserved. DigitalPersona and U.are.U are trademarks of DigitalPersona, Inc. registered in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE DigitalPersona, Inc.