Biometrics

Biometrics is the science of using digital technology to identify individuals based on the individual's unique physical and biological qualities. Simply, biometrics is the technique of verifying a person's identity from a physical characteristic (e.g., signature, fingerprint, face… etc), or personal trait (e.g., voice pattern, handwriting, or acoustic signature).

Two Classifications

Biometrics can be separated into two classifications: physiological characteristics and behavioral ones. Common Physiological biometric identifiers include fingerprints, hand geometry, eye patterns, and facial features. Typical Behavioral identifiers are the voice and signature. Voiceprint and signature analyzers are generally considered less conclusive because they are subject to limitations such as illness and imitation.

Fingerprinting

Fingerprinting is the most referred biometric--a method of identification used for 100 years. Advances in computer technology and communication networks have made even huge fingerprint databases available for instant searches.

Current fingerprint verification systems tend to reject about 3 percent of authorized users while maintaining false accept rates of less than one in a million. More than 30 companies are working on new fingerprint ID systems using such computer technologies as neural networks, fuzzy logic, and ultrasound scanning.

Hand Geometry

Hand geometry has the longest implementation record. Six different hand-scanning products have been developed in the 20 years since Shearson Hamil began measuring finger geometries on Wall Street.

Over 8,000 systems are in use, including installations at San Francisco International Airport, the Columbian legislature, day care centers, a Los Angeles sperm bank, hospitals, and immigration facilities.

The U.S. Justice Department is installing hand-geometry identification equipment in prisons--the same equipment used by Olympic Village officials in Atlanta in 1996 to track athletes and staff. Under Justice Department guidelines, the staff, inmates, and visitors are required to enroll in the system upon entering a prison. An image of the scanned hand is stored in the prison's computer system, along with other personal details such as a facial image captured by video camera. Prisoner location and visitor exit control can thereby be more precise than human decision.

Iris and Retina Scanning

Biometrics also includes technologies, such as iris or retinal measurements of the eye. Retinal scans shoot a low-intensity beam of light into the eyeball and record the pattern of veins in the eye.

Iris eye measurement uses a camera to photograph the iris in the front of the eye. Unlike retinal vein patterns, which can change over time, the iris is unique and does not change during a person's lifetime. Like fingerprints, no two individual iris structures are alike.

Voice Recognition

In the area of behavioral biometrics are voice recognition technologies that include telephone authentication. One uses extraction and pattern-matching algorithms embedded on computer chips to analyze voices.

Users favor voice verification. Several large corporations, including AT&T, ITT, GM, Hertz, Texas Instruments, and Martin Marietta, employ voice verification to protect computer, office, lab, and vault access. In addition, several states use voice recognition for parolees on home detention.

Facial Recognition

Facial recognition systems, one of the oldest forms of recognition, measure characteristics such as the distance between facial features (from pupil to pupil, for instance) or the dimensions of the features themselves (such as the width of the mouth).

Most developers employ either neural network technology or statistical correlations of the face's geometric shape. Many have had difficulty achieving high levels of performance when database sizes increase to the tens of thousands or more.

Signature verification

This is the most dependable and cheap Biometrics system. It has been used and accepted a long time ago. There are two types of signatures; Off-line and On-line signatures. The former is a signature on a check or a contract. While the latter is a signature signed using a special hardware (stylus and tablet).

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