Biometrics
- For the use of statistics in biology, see Biostatistics.
Biometrics (derived from the ancient Greek words bios = "life" and metron = "measure") is the study and development of automated methods for the identification and authentication of individuals based on each person's unique physical and behavioral traits. Examples of unique physical characteristics include fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, facial patterns, and hand measurements. Examples of chiefly behavioral characteristics include signature, gait, and typing patterns. Voice is considered a mix of both physical and behavioral characteristics.
The term biometrics is also used to refer to the automated methods themselves. In addition, the word biometric is sometimes used as a noun to refer to the particular characteristic being measured, and sometimes as an adjective to describe the measurements, products, or technologies in this field.
History
While biometrics did not show up in practice in Western cultures until the late nineteenth century, it was being used in China by at least the fourteenth century. Explorer and writer Joao de Barros recorded that Chinese merchants stamped children’s palm prints and footprints on paper with ink, as a way to distinguish young children from one another.
In the West, identification relied heavily on "photographic memory" until Alphonse Bertillon, a French police desk clerk and anthropologist, developed the "anthropometric" system (later known as Bertillonage) in 1883. It was the first precise, scientific system widely used to identify criminals. It turned biometrics into a field of study. It involved precisely measuring certain lengths and widths of the head and body, as well as recording individual markings such as tattoos and scars. Bertillon’s system was widely adopted in the West until its flaws became apparent—mainly problems associated with differing methods of measurement and changing measurements. After that, Western police forces turned to fingerprinting—essentially the same system seen in China hundreds of years earlier.
In recent years, biometrics has progressed from simple fingerprinting to many different methods involving the measurement of various physical and behavioral traits. The uses of biometrics have also expanded, from identification to verification technologies, such as those used in security systems.
Operation and performance
When a biometric system is set up as an authentication device (to verify personal identity), first-time users are required to begin with an enrollment process. At that stage, the system records one or more of the person's physical and behavioral traits. The system uses a numerical algorithm (procedure for handling mathematical data) to convert the information into a digital representation, which is then entered into a database.
During each subsequent attempt to use the system, the person's biometric is captured again and processed into a digital template. That template is then compared with those in the database to determine a match. Ideally, when a user logs in, nearly all his features match and the system accepts the person as a valid user. On the other hand, when someone else whose traits do not fully match tries to log in, the system rejects the attempt and does not allow the person to log in.
The performance of a biometric device is usually measured in terms of its "false accept rate" (FAR), "false reject (or nonmatch) rate" (FRR), and "failure to enroll" rate (FTE or FER). The FAR is a measure of the percentage of invalid users who are incorrectly accepted as genuine users, while the FRR is a measure of the percentage of valid users who are rejected as impostors.
In real-world biometric systems, if an instrument's sensitivity is adjusted to lower its FAR, then its FRR tends to increase, as shown (in a simplified form) in the graph on the right. Conversely, if the sensitivity is adjusted to lower FRR, then FAR tends to increase. Thus the instrument's FAR and FRR can be typically traded off against each other by changing some parameter.
One of the most common measures of biometric systems is the rate at which both accept and reject errors are equal. It is called the equal error rate (EER) or the cross-over error rate (CER). The lower the EER or CER, the more accurate the system is considered to be. Current technologies have widely varying equal error rates, ranging from as low as 60% to as high as 99.9%.
Although there are various misgivings about the use of biometric systems (expressed below), some of these systems have the potential to identify individuals with a high degree of certainty. In particular, substantial claims are being made about the accuracy of iris recognition technology, which is said to have the capacity to distinguish between identical twins.
A comparison of biometrics technologies
The table on the right (Yau Wei Yun, 2003 [2]) compares the performance of various biometrics technologies with one another in seven categories of evaluation:
- Universality describes how common that biometric is among individuals.
- Uniqueness is how well the biometric distinguishes one individual from another.
- Permanence measures how well a biometric resists aging.
- Collectability explains how easy it is to acquire the biometric for measurement.
- Performance indicates the accuracy, speed, and robustness of the system capturing the biometric.
- Acceptability indicates the degree of approval of a technology by the public in everyday life.
- Circumvention is how easy it is to fool the authentication system.
Each system is ranked as low, medium, or high in each category. A low ranking indicates poor performance in the evaluation criterion, whereas a high ranking indicates very good performance.
Issues and concerns
Various concerns have been expressed about the safety and security of biometrics systems.
Identity theft and privacy issues
Although biometrics systems are often touted as ways to restrict criminality, identity theft can be a greater problem with these technologies. A person whose credit card is stolen can land in great difficulty; but if a person's iris scan is stolen, the thief may be able to access a wide range of personal information and financial accounts, and the damage could be irreversible.
An individual who wishes to foil the system may:
- plant DNA at the scene of a crime;
- associate another's identity with his own biometrics, thereby impersonating without arousing suspicion; or
- interfere with the interface between a biometric device and the host system, so that a "fail" message gets converted to a "pass".
In such cases, an innocent person may be charged with a crime, while the real culprit may escape.
Also, the biometric solution to identity theft is only as good as the information in the database used for verifying identity. Even when the initial information is correctly recorded and stored, future computer error or vandalism (hacking) could prevent the biometrics system from being 100% foolproof against identity theft.
Moreover, privacy advocates fear that biometrics technologies may be used to diminish the personal liberties of law-abiding citizens. The government now has a huge range of new technologies, including biometrics systems, to "search" individuals and collect vast databases of information on them. These technologies include digital video recorders, infrared scanners, X ray scanners , wireless devices, global positioning satellite systems, image scanning, voice recognition devices, DNA analyzers, and brain-wave fingerprinting instruments.
Societal concerns
As technology advances, more and more private companies and public utilities may be expected to use biometrics for safe, accurate identification. These advances, however, raise various concerns, as follows.
- Some believe that certain biometrics systems may cause physical harm to its users, particularly if the instruments used are unsanitary. For example, there are concerns that retina scanners might not always be clean.
- There are additional concerns that personal information taken through biometric methods can be misused, tampered with, or sold. For instance, criminals may steal, rearrange, or copy the biometric data. Also, the data obtained using biometrics can be used in unauthorized ways without the individual's consent.
Societal fears about the use of biometrics may continue over time. As the public becomes better educated about the practices and the methods are used more widely, these concerns may become more and more evident.
Uses and initiatives
Brazil
Since the early twentieth century, Brazilian citizens have used ID cards. The Brazilian government's decision to adopt fingerprint-based biometrics was spearheaded by Dr. Felix Pacheco at Rio de Janeiro, at that time capital of the Federative Republic. Dr. Pacheco was a friend of Dr. Juan Vucetich, who invented one of the most complete tenprint classification systems in existence. The Vucetich system was adopted not only by Brazil but also by most other South American countries. The oldest and most traditional ID Institute in Brazil (Instituto de Identificação Félix Pacheco) was integrated into the civil and criminal AFIS system in 1999.
Each state in Brazil has the authority to print its own ID cards, but the layout and type of data are the same for all of them. The ID cards printed in Rio de Janeiro are fully digitized, using a 2D bar code with information that can be matched against its owner off-line. The bar code encodes a color photo, a signature, two fingerprints, and other data. This technology was developed in 2000 to enhance the security of the Brazilian ID cards.
Canada
Canada has introduced biometrics in its passports, with the use of digitized photos. Each passport has a chip that contains the person's picture and personal information, such as name and date of birth.
Border crossings have electronic readers that can read the chip and verify the information present in the card and on the passport. This method allows for increased efficiency and accuracy of identifying people at border crossings. CANPASS, developed by Canada Customs, is currently being used at certain major airports that have kiosks set up to take digital pictures of a person’s eye as a means of identification.
United States
The United States government has become a strong advocate of biometrics, as security concerns have increased in recent years. Starting in 2005, U.S. passports with facial (image-based) biometric data were scheduled to be produced. Technical difficulties, however, are delaying the integration of biometrics into passports in the United States and European Union. These difficulties include compatibility of reading devices, information formatting, and nature of content (e.g. the US and UK currently expect to use only image data, whereas the EU intends to use fingerprint and image data in their passport RFID biometric chip(s)).
Privacy activists in many countries have criticized the technology's use for the potential harm to civil liberties, privacy, and the risk of identity theft. Currently, there is some apprehension in the United States (and the European Union) that the information can be "skimmed" and identify people's citizenship remotely for criminal intent, such as kidnapping.
See also
- Biometric passport
- Biometric word list
- British biometric national identity card
- Facial recognition system
- Physical anthropology
- Three-dimensional face recognition
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Biometric news portal Dedicated portal for biometric systems and products: fingerprint, iris, retina, hand, palm vein, voice and DNA recognition and identification.
- A Brief History of Biometrics Retrieved March 19, 2005.
- M2SYS TECHNOLOGY - Vendor Provides Accelarated Fingerprint Adoption Technology
- TechSense Ventures Group - Biometrics and fingerprint technology in Singapore.
- Reconhecimento Automático de Impressões digitais: O Sistema de Identificação do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
- Maker of Biometric Devices - Biometrics and fingerprint technology.
- Ashborn, Julian. "Guide to Biometrics". Springer Professional Computing. 1st edition. 2004
- Access Control news portal Authoritative news site for access control and for biometric systems and products
- Yun, Yau Wei. The ‘123’ of Biometric Technology, 2003. Retrieved from on November 21, 2005 from the World Wide Web: http://www.itsc.org.sg/synthesis/2002/biometric.pdf
- Biometric Digest newsletter. Published monthly with weekly updates. 64 issues per year. Primary source of news & information, vendors, case studies, calendar of events for expositions & conferences, financial reports, names in the news and more. http://www.mydocsonline.com/pub/wrogers/26Mar.pdf
External Links
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
