What is Biometric
Biometric is used to identify specifics of people by certain characteristics. Biometric characteristics can be divided in two main classes:
• Physiological are related to the shape of the body. The oldest traits, which have been used for more than 100 years, are fingerprints. Other examples are face recognition, hand geometry and iris recognition.
• Behavioral are related to the behavior of a person. The first characteristic to be used, still widely used today, is the signature. More modern approaches are the study of keystroke dynamics and of voice.
Strictly speaking, voice is also a physiological trait because every person has a different pitch, but voice recognition is mainly based on the study of the way a person speaks, commonly classified as behavioral. Other biometric strategies are being developed such as those based on gait (way of walking), retina, hand veins, ear canal, facial thermogram, DNA, odor and scent and palm prints.
Biometrics and Privacy
A concern is how a person's biometric, once collected, can be protected. The biggest con-cern is the fact that once a fingerprint or other biometric source has been compromised it is com-promised for life, because users can never change their fingerprints. A theoretical example is a debit card with a personal Identification Number (PIN) or a biometric.
Some argue that if a person's biometric data is stolen it might allow someone else to access personal information or financial accounts, in which case the damage could be irreversible. Several solutions to this problem are actively being researched, such as Biometric Encryption and Cancelable Biometrics.
Biometric passport
A biometric passport is a combined paper and electronic identity document that uses bio-metrics to authenticate the citizenship of travelers. The passport's critical information is stored on a tiny RFID computer chip, much like information stored on smartcards. Like some smartcards, the passport book design calls for an embedded contactless chip that is able to hold digital signature data to ensure the integrity of the passport and the biometric data.
Only the digital image (usually in JPEG or JPEG2000 format) of each biometric feature is actually stored in the chip. The comparison of biometric features is performed outside the passport chip by electronic border control systems (e-borders).
To store biometric data on the contactless chip, it includes a minimum of 32 kilobytes of EEPROM storage memory, and runs on an interface in accordance with the ISO/IEC 14443 interna-tional standard, amongst others. These standards ensure interoperability between different coun-tries and different manufacturers of passport books.
Maybe it was your lucky day at the airport; and you were selected for a body scan. It is just to detect if you are carrying anything illegal into the airport—right. However, according to Kurt Nimmo, the scanners are also collecting and storing images for law enforcement. The body scanner can store not only the body but also facial and iris. Nimmo reports about how the government is starting a $1 billion effort to gather the largest biometric data base (Nimmo, 2010). The government has been collecting biometrics in efforts to identify criminals and terrorist. According to Ellen Nakashima, employers that have sent in fingerprints of employees to scan for criminal background checks can even use the digital system. It can then keep a watch out and report any minor altercations with the law (Nakashima, 2007, par. 2). It is scary to think that there can be false positives in facial recognition. However, for protection of the greater good, I am sure it must report a suspect of a potential crime. This then puts a
By definition Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic (Campbell, 1995). More and more businesses are now using biometrics as a preferred measure over traditional methods involving passwords and PIN numbers for 2 reasons; The person being identified is required to be physically present at the point of identification; Identification based on biometrics techniques removes the need to remember a password or to carry other identification (Watrall, 10/14/03). The need for biometrics can be found in federal, state and local governments, in the military, and in commercial applications (Campbell, 1995). Enterprise-wide network security infrastructures, government IDs, secure electronic banking, investing and other financial transactions, retail sales, law enforcement, and health and social services are already benefiting from these technologies (Campbell, 1995).
The process of verifying a person’s identity, also called authentication, plays an important role in various areas of everyday life. Any situation with user interaction where the identity is required needs a means to verify the claimed identity. One of the more obvious and commonly known application areas for identity verifying technologies, i.e. authentication, is the Logical Access Control to computer systems, where authenticity is normally established by confirming aclaimed identity with a secret password or PIN code.Traditional methods of confirming the identity of an unknown person rely either upon some secret knowledge (such as a PIN or password) or upon an object the person possesses (such as a key or card). But testing for secret knowledge or the possession of special objects can only confirm the knowledge or presence, and not, that the rightful owner is present. In fact, both could be stolen. Conversely, biometric technology is capable of establishing a much closer relationship between the user’s identity and a particular body, through its unique features or behavior.
DNA fingerprinting is a technique of testing to identify and evaluate the genetic information taken from an organism. It involves the use of DNA to create a fingerprint that is unique in every organism. In case of human use it has many benefits. DNA fingerprinting can solve crimes, identify one person from another, be used for paternity testing and even, when done early, reveal a person’s risk of disease in the future. However, there are also many negatives of DNA fingerprinting. The main negatives involve issues such as privacy concerns and whether the information contained in the DNA should be available to others. For example, people may be affected at a later stage such as when applying for insurance or careers. In 2003, The Department of Health published “The White Paper”, proposing that all people be fingerprinted at birth. What if DNA use gets out of hand and leads to misuse?
The term biometrics is commonly known as the field of development of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences. Though, even more recently it has taken on a whole new definition. Biometrics is an amazing new topic referring to “the emerging field of technology devoted to the identification of individuals using biological traits, based on retinal or iris scanning, fingerprints, or face recognition”. Biometrics has already begun using applications that range from attendance tracking with a time clock to security checkpoints with a large volume of people. The growing field of biometrics has really been put on the map by two things, the technological advances made within the last 20 years, and the growing risk of security and terrorism among people all over the world. In this paper I will focus on: the growing field of biometrics, why it is important to our future, how the United States government has played a role in its development and use, the risks involved, the implications on public privacy, and further recommendations received from all over the science and technology field.
In today’s world, we can say that the main danger to privacy, security for people who lives in free democratic societies can come from the system that will create and apply supposedly very high tech national ID card.
Biometrics is, “the automated use of physiological or behavioral characteristics to determine or verify identity (biometricgroup.com, 2014).”16 The purpose of the paper is to provide information about different forms of Biometrics. With the ever increasing threat of terrorism at home and abroad, biometrics is emerging as a way to increase security across the world. It is important to point out current issues dealing with Biometrics and how they relate to people that may one day have to use them.
Finally, the three-factor authentication deals with biometrics. This is the use of retinal scanning, voice prints, fingerprints, etc. This is one of the most effiecent authentication processes because the major credential is impossible to steal or imitate. This is because is uses the most unique person of a person. Among all the acess controls, fingerprint scanning is commonly used because fingerprints are unique to one individual noone shares the same finger print.
Within the article the authors point out the use of biometric and multi-modal authentication techniques, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of different authentication approaches. The article has substantial background information and study results, not only point out the impact of such methods but also shows how the active authentication can take place to benefit the
Biometrics is described as the use of human physical features to verify identity and has been in use since the beginning of recorded history. Only recently, biometrics has been used in today’s high-tech society for the prevention of identity theft. In this paper, we will be understanding biometrics, exploring the history of biometrics, examples of today’s current technology and where biometrics are expected to go in the future.
Biometric verification refers to an automatic verification of a person based on some specific biometric features derived from his/her physiological and/or behavioral characteristics. A palm print refers to an image acquired of the palm region of the hand. The biometric use of palm prints uses ridge patterns to identify an individual. It is rich in its features: principal lines, wrinkles, ridges, singular points and minutiae points.[1]
Speech is the common basic way we communication with each other. The development of voice biometrics is one that emerged to allow a user to input their voice into a computer system. It is a growing technology which provides security in computers. A speech recognition system is designed to assist the user to complete what that person wants to say versus having a person transcribe it. The first step in voice recognition is for the user to be trained and produce an actual voice sample. Through this process sounds, words or phrases are converted in electrical signals and then they are turned into a coding process by the system. The goal of voice recognition is to understand the human spoken voice.
Biometric technology is used for the ways humans can be identified by unique aspects of their bodies, such as fingerprints, body odor, our voices and many more. If one was to think about privacy rights, he/she would be concerned about the widespread adoption of these systems, since such systems could easily be used to develop a record of known rebellious people and/or dangerous criminals, to be used for social control purposes. Although that may seem pretty good and a positive thing for the society, one should take into account of the defects and errors of technology. Of the many biometrics technologies that are being developed and are already developed, facial recognition is one of the most threatening because it can be deployed secretly; one may not know whether or when they can be caught in a surveillance camera for such facial recognition biometrics. Additionally, tests have found that the miscalculations for facial biometrics technologies are very high. As a result, according to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, innocent people can be erroneously identified as dangerous criminals and actual dangerous criminals and/or suspected terrorists can fail to be detected overall, allowing for a huge injustice and unfairness. Privacy rights concerned with biometrics have sparked a concern and should be dealt with; otherwise, this is just one of the
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the biometric community has made vast technological improvements in protecting the United States and its borders (The Biometric Consortium, 2012). Biometrics is an automated method of recognizing an individual based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Biometrics includes features such as face, fingerprints, hand geometry, handwriting,
“The term -information security- means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction” (United States Code, 2008). In order to ensure the identity of who is trying to access the information, the concept of “Biometric Technology” has been developed in the last years. This essay will start explaining this concept and the characteristics of its development through the time. Then, the essay will offer a brief explanation of biometric systems operation and a description of different biometric systems developed until now. Finally, this research analyzes the current and future applications and the issues that surround it.