In December last year, JNTU-H mandated all the affiliated colleges to install Biometric Attendance Systems, to keep track of student and faculty attendance. While the move was opposed by many colleges owing to the high expense involved in it, JNTU Registrar N. Yadaiah made it clear, earlier this year, that colleges will not be given affiliation if the systems are not in place. Most students aren't happy with the move either, as this means lesser bunking opportunities and other such student centric concerns. The petty things apart, the question here is the reliability and the efficiency of these systems, to ensure there's no misuse.

Just yesterday, Hindustan Times reported a case where 200 students at the Institute of Chemical Technology used their knowledge of chemistry to hack the institute’s biometric attendance system. According to the report in the newspaper, "the students used small layers of a widely-used resin adhesive and pressed their thumbs against them, embossing them with their fingerprints. These films were then used by their friends to mark attendance for their absent friends." 

In the scenario when many colleges are opposed to  this move by JNTU, this incident comes as somewhat of an eye opener, showing the flaws in putting up such a system in place.

As they say, a stronger wall only gives rise to a stronger weapon, the supposedly foolproof biometric system just made the students come up with a way to crack it. In this context, knowing the capabilities of the students, one way to ensure the safety and efficiency of such a system is to have an iris scanner or a voice recognition system, as opposed to fingerprint scanner.

Another way is to let the students and faculty themselves involve in building a system or coming up with solutions for this. With over 57,000 students from 158 affiliated colleges across Telangana, JNTU needs to come up with a totally foolproof system to ensure attendance and higher standards.