Introduction to biometrics

Biometrics is the method of identifying a specific individual by looking at unique physical traits. Analyzing fingerprints, hand geometry, voice, facial or iris features is the most common way in history of recognizing an individual.

Most popular

Using fingerprints is by far the most popular method of biometric authentication. The benefits of fingerprint recognition technology are numerous: it’s easy to use, the level of security increases, and password and PIN administration is drastically reduced.

Over the past years the use of biometrics and fingerprints has rapidly increased with the help of automated technology such as smart card technology.

A biometric system can be used for either verifying or identifying individuals.

Verification

In this type of biometric system the aim is to establish that a person is who he or she claims to be by using a one-to-one comparison method.

For this you need already stored information on some type of secure token or application. Biometric information is then compared with the stored template to verify that the individual is who he or she claims to be.

This method is often used in conjunction with a smart card, username or ID number.

Identification

This type of method is used when you need to identify a specific individual among many. This is called a one-to-many comparison and means that biometric data is compared against a biometric database in attempt to identify an unknown individual.

The identification only succeeds in identifying the individual if the comparison of the biometric sample to a template in the database falls within a previously set threshold.

This method always requires a database and in most cases a network connection. Such a network connection might be considered as a security issue. A biometric database solution might also be found intrusive on the personal integrity in some parts of the world.