It is the second-largest building in the world, with 12,000 workers per shift and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cash on property at any given time. It may be an extreme understatement to say The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel needs a sophisticated security system.

Standard casino surveillance is a given, but where the Las Vegas Sands property stands out is with its extensive use of biometrics for access control. The Venetian Macao has deployed one of the most extensive biometrics programs in the hospitality industry, using a pair of technologies from Toronto-based Bioscrypt Inc. that are integrated for access control purposes by Solution ExpertTechnology Ltd. of Hong Kong.

Bioscrypt VisionAccess 3D Face Readers are set up at the resort’s employee entrance to authenticate workers entering through individual turnstiles. VisionAccess units, which cost about US$5,000 each, can identify an individual in less than one second by shining an invisible infrared light across the person’s face and comparing the facial structure against his or her template on file. Entry to the back office is impossible without first passing through the VisionAccess stations, and the system eliminates the need for timecards, as access data is automatically recorded.

In addition, at 50 particularly sensitive access points throughout the resort, The Venetian Macao has installed V-Smart fingerprint readers. Employee identities are authenticated by pressing their fingers against the reader, which uses algorithms to compare with the prints on file. Like the face readers, the fingerprint readers take less than a second to confirm or deny entry.

Concern over invasion of privacy is the single biggest reason that biometrics remains mere science-fiction novelty in the minds of many hoteliers. Fingerprint readers are particularly tough sells because of the devices’ longstanding connection to law enforcement and government surveillance. Indeed, Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies has found that users are more receptive to machines that scan the whole handprint rather than just the fingerprint. The technology is essentially the same, but without the Big Brother connotation that often comes with fingerprinting, handprint scans—known in the security industry as “hand geometry”—tend to be an easier sell.

The La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club in California uses three HandPunch hand geometry units from Ingersoll Rand in lieu of employee timecards. Employees previously were losing timecards and the 98-room resort was losing money from the human resources nemesis known as the “buddy punch,” in which workers covertly clock in for their late or absent colleagues. Biometric technology, obviously, eliminates that problem.

“When we looked at changing systems we definitely wanted to do something a little more secure, in terms of the phantom punching that would go on,” says Ellen Gaines, human resources director at the resort and its sister property, the La Jolla Shores Hotel.

A handful of the resort’s 500 employees initially objected to the handprint scans, Gaines says, but once Ingersoll Rand explained the technical aspects of the system—namely, that hand geometry stores a very detailed three-dimensional measurement of the hand, rather than an actual image—“there were very few that were skeptical after that,” she says.

Jon Mooney, Ingersoll Rand’s general manager for biometrics, says aversion to biometrics inevitably subsides as people become more familiar with the technology. That fact makes biometrics a viable option for back-of-house uses, but its deployment in public areas of a hotel is a bit more dubious.

For at least one hotel, biometrics has turned into something of a marketable amenity. The Nine Zero Hotel in Boston offers two suites (plus an employee entrance) equipped with LG Iris Identification Technology. Like a scene from a spy movie, guests access the suites by letting an infrared beam scan their eyes. Upon checking in, guests staying in the suite are given the choice of using a traditional keycard or the iris scan; if they choose the latter, an initial enrollment scan takes about four minutes. The template is then saved for future visits.

Some guests want nothing to do with the technology, General Manager Jimmy Hord says. But most who are offered the chance to use it do so enthusiastically, and some have booked the suites at the 190-room Kimpton boutique specifically because of the iris scans. “Most guests find it very fun,” Hord says. “It’s incredibly smooth, incredibly accurate, and it’s reliable.” The iris scan suites have proven popular enough that Nine Zero is planning to install four more units in 2009.

Nine Zero decided on iris scans rather than fingerprinting or hand geometry in part because of the novelty factor, but also because they are touchless—there is no risk of false reads due to smudging. Hord also cites the law enforcement stigma as a reason for skipping fingerprinting.