Mumbai college’s students trick biometric system

Students of the Institute of Chemical Technology (ICT) at Matunga  found ways to cheat the biometric attendance system to tackle the attendance enforcement.

Students used the biometric attendance machine in different classrooms to mark attendance for their respective classrooms. Also, a handful of students used an adhesive to create fingerprint films which were then used by them to mark attendance for absent friends. The students confessed about this practice of misusing the biometric system under pressure when the management noticed the flaws in the attendance.

Suspecting foul play in attendance records, the authorities asked the students to come clean, threatening them with ‘severe action’ if they were found to be engaging in the practise. “There are students who have registered attendance despite not being in class. We urge you to come forward... and let us know the number of times you have unfairly marked your attendance. We have close circuit television (CCTV) camera recordings of all such activities,” read a notice from the ICT authorities.

After the notice was issued, a number of students admitted to the forgery. The institute has decided to punish them by reducing their credit grades by two points.

“Even though the attendance records showed otherwise, we suspected that the students were not attending classes because they performed poorly in their exams. Then we came to know that they used polymer films to mark their attendance,” said GD Yadav, vice-chancellor, ICT.

He added that the students were forced to come clean as the lectures at ICT are video-recorded, allowing authorities to keep a track of students. Authorities and teachers noticed thedisparity between actual attendance and the biometric records owing to small size of classrooms , said a source.