The engineering behind biometric gun safes is they wanted to invent gun safe that reads fingerprint of the user is simplicity itself. The fingerprint sensor maps your specific finger or thumbprint using capacitance and a proprietary computer algorithm. If the sampled fingerprint matches with the print stored in the database, the locking mechanism will release. But all you really need to know is that the biometric technology can tell your print from anyone else's, so only your print will open your safe. (When the print doesn't match — ie, an unauthorized user is attempting to access your safe — the lock records a missed combination and counts against the number of permitted tries to get into the safe before the lock enters a lock-out mode for a set period of time.)