Future lock A Morrill company sees biometric technology — using fingerprints and similar personal data for security — as the next big step in keyless entry

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MORRILL – In the future, keys will be obsolete, and locked doors will open only when an authorized fingerprint is presented.

Welcome to the future.

A Waldo County businessman hopes he and his partners are on the ground floor of the next big thing in door locks. Russell Manton, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, has begun manufacturing a keyless door lock that uses biometric technology. The device can scan up to 100 fingerprints, and then allows just the people attached to those fingerprints to gain entry.

The technology is so sophisticated, Manton said, that it will not work if the homeowner’s finger has been, uh, removed. If that’s important to anyone.

We’ve all seen – and eventually learned how to use – the credit-card key locks in almost every hotel and motel in the United States and around the world, which use a magnetic strip. A company Manton started in 1992, Page Installation, has installed about 150,000 of the locks in about 1,000 hotels from Brazil to Alaska.

It was while visiting Belfast to oversee the installation of the credit card-type locks at a local motel that Manton fell in love with the area and bought a house in nearby Morrill.

As the hospitality industry completed conversion to what was then a new technology, Manton looked ahead.

“I said, ‘Hey, let’s make our own locks,'” and that led him to biometrics, a technology he and many others believe is about to explode into untold applications.

Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on physiological or behavioral characteristics. Biological features – faces, fingerprints, retinas etc. – are measured in a precise way, hence the term “biometrics.”

The concept for the technology is familiar to those who have seen it used in movies; typically, the CIA agent or Pentagon official is allowed entrance into a top-secret room by submitting to a fingerprint or retinal scan.

Products and services related to biometrics are expected to total $7 billion worldwide this year, and projected to grow 11 percent each year.

“Security and biometrics – it’s a huge industry,” Manton said.

Michael Cooper, an attorney who is assisting with patent and importation issues, and three others are partners with Manton in Suretech Industries, the business they have launched around the keyless locks. The main office is in Gorham, but a lot of the work is being done from a second-floor room in Manton’s home in Morrill.

After looking in the United States and Europe, Manton and his partners found a manufacturer in Guazhou, in the Guang Dong province of China. Labor and material costs were attractive, he said, and the company was willing to tailor its operation to produce Suretech’s specialized lock. If things go well, the Chinese company may become an Asian distributor of the locks.

Manton has traveled to China four times in the last six months to work out the deal. The emerging economy there has left many in the United States believing Chinese products are cheaply – and poorly – made, but that perception is wrong, the partners said.

“The quality was astronomical. You walk into a factory over there and nobody’s talking,” Manton said. Cooper praised the responsiveness of the factory managers to their needs.

Manton, Cooper and their partners are hoping Home Depot will carry the new lock set, and they are also investigating having the item featured in the Sharper Image and Brookstone catalogs.

The lock will retail for $299, and comes in several designs and finishes.

With about 75 million baby boomers approaching old age, and the arthritis and declining vision that often accompanies it, the market for a keyless lock is substantial, they believe.

The goal is to sell 20,000 units in the first year, beginning on the East Coast.

Even though the lock will cost about three times what a standard exterior lock set costs, the partners are confident there is a viable market.

“We tried to design it as user-friendly as possible,” Manton said.

“They want security and they want ease of access,” Cooper added, describing his elderly mother as someone who would welcome the ease of use of the lock when she comes home with a bag of groceries in one hand.

To introduce the concept, Suretech is considering featuring the locks on the Home Shopping Network or QVC, and may even pay for infomercials.

Though the lock is larger than a typical residential unit, it is designed to fit into a standard opening with just one small hole to be drilled. The screen where the finger is placed is protected by a sliding cover, to protect it from the elements.

In addition to residential use, the keyless lock will probably be embraced by small businesses, said Greg Whitcomb, who is working for Manton in Morrill. Rather than call a locksmith to re-key the door of a small business each time an employee leaves, the biometric device allows the owner to delete the fingerprint of the departing employee, thereby retaining security at no additional cost.

Whitcomb suggested daycare centers might be another likely user.

“It’s endless, where these things are appropriate,” he said.

The Suretech lock recognizes 37 points of a fingerprint. Just 8 to 10 are required by police to make a match, Cooper said.

The technology’s capacity is expanding. Soon, Manton said, hotels will have guests register their fingerprints at the front desk, then enter their room moments later using only the fingerprint.

Though a competitor’s fingerprint locks have begun to enter the marketplace, Cooper and Manton are confident their lock is covered by the company’s U.S. patent.