Future of Biometrics
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.
By definition, “biometrics” (Woodward, Orlans, and Higgins, 2003) is the science of using biological properties to identify individuals; for example, fingerprints, retina scans, and voice recognition. We’ve all seen in the movies, how the heroes and the villains have used other’s fingerprints and voice patterns to get into the super, secret vault. While these ideas were fantasy many years ago, today biometrics are being used and you may not even know it.
By combining the Greek words “bio”, which stands for “life”, and “metrics”, which stands for “measure”, you produce the term “biometrics” or “life measurements”. To understand biometrics at the most basic level, all one has to do is to picture a loved one in their mind. A human can specifically recognize another human by remembering an eye color, a hair color, a nose shape, a wart, or any combination of facial features. While the human mind is capable of remembering the physical characteristics of several humans, it is impossible to retain, reference, and sort thousands of biometric data which may contain details down to the molecular level. Today, this has been made easier by computer technology.
The first recorded use of biometrics dates back to the 14th century when the Spanish explorer Joao de Barros witnessed Chinese parents pressing their children’s inked fingers and feet onto paper allowing them to differentiate one child from another. Through Barros’ travels, he noted that Chinese businessmen also closed various financial and business transactions with fingerprints. There are other pieces of historical evidence indicating the use of biometrics for various purposes prior to Barros’ records. However, none were successfully documented.
Vacca (2007) found the use of biometrics would slip into the darkness until the mid to late 1800s when it would reemerge to be known as “anthropometrics” and address the identification crisis facing the world resulting from a population explosion, human mobility, and a need to positively identify individuals. In 1858, Sir William Herschel stamped the handprint of employees to determine whether the person in line to receive a paycheck was an employee or an imposter.
Fingerprints were reported as unique in 1880 by a scientist called Henry Fauld’s in an article published in Nature, and in the paper,
In July of 1858, the English began using fingerprints when Chief Magistrate of the Hooghly district in Jungipoor, India, James Herschel came up with the idea of using whole handprints instead of signatures. He took the hand of businessman Rajyadhar Konai, and pressed his hand onto a contract. Herschel claimed the idea was a mere tactic to “frighten him out of all thoughts of repudiating his signature”, and later became a way of signing contracts- only this time just using the index and middle fingers. However, at this time, the prints were not used as a scientific means of identification. It would be a while before the fingerprint collection grew, and then Herschel realized they could be used to prove or disprove identities.
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.
My field of study is Criminal Justice. A new development in this field had been put in place by the FBI this new development is Next Generation Identification system or (NGI) which is what it will be referred to in this essay. NGI is what will be enhancing and/or replacing IAFIS which is the current system used my law enforcement. NGI is a state-of -the-art biometric identification service. NGI is a one point two billion dollar investment by the U.S. federal government. It will take a total of ten years for NGI to be fully activated. NGI is divided into six different stages, which are ten-print processing, RISC, national palm repository and latent searches,facial recognition and Rap Back,Iris recognition, and Tech refresh.
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.
...ificant difference in the way law officials assists, serve, and protects the public. One advantageous forms of technology used within the criminal justice system has demonstrated to being quite an asset for many. The use of fingerprint technology have come quite a long way in the aid to solving many crimes that would otherwise gone unloved or resulted in more inconclusive outcomes. The Automated Fingerprint Identification System is swift and robust enough to obtain results in very little time. With the enormous quantity of fingerprinting information stored, it is probable that this system will prolong its use in the support of apprehending criminals, identifying family and relatives for a long time to come, and as technology is always advancing. There is no reason to believe that this system is bound to making our homes, streets communities a safer place for all.
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.
Law enforcement uses several methods to solve all types of crimes. Having a variety of ways to help solve an investigation gives officials an advantage. If one method fails or isn’t helpful, there are several others they can rely on. For instance, if there are no physical witnesses to a crime, the criminal may have left a fingerprint at the crime scene. An individual’s fingerprint is unique, “no two persons have exactly the same arrangement of ridge patterns” (“Fingerprint ID”). Fingerprints of criminals and of civilians are collected and stored. Also, “People who apply for government jobs, jobs that handle confidential information, banking jobs, teaching jobs, law enforcement jobs, and any job that involves security issues can be fingerprinted” (“The First ID”). Fingerprints are processed within hours and minutes through the Integrated Automated Fingerprint ID System. This system was developed in 1991, and made it easier for different law enforcement agencies to store and share fingerprints.
Fingerprint scanning has already been implemented into business to effectively enhance security and authentications. When scanning a fingerprint, a scanner has to have a pre-saved image of the authorized finger to compare images in a linked database to allow access. In order to allay privacy concerns, however, fingerprint scanners do not store actual fingerprint images. Instead unique characteristics of the fingerprint are analyzed and stored as an encrypted mathematical representation (Ballard, 2016). Businesses are hoping to safeguard their sensitive data by using this form biometrics as a viable option because of the several benefits and low costs. This is a easy to use system with cheap equipment that generally requires low power consumption. However, the disadvantage is that if the surface of the finger is damaged or contains any marks, the identification becomes increasingly difficult. Fingerprint security systems are already
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]
Fingerprint usage dates back to the 1800s. Sir William Herschel used the prints as signatures on civil contracts, before they were found useful towards crimes (History of Fingerprints Timeline, 2012). A British surgeon, Dr. Henry Faulds, wrote about using fingerprints for personal identification. He first looked at prints on clay pottery and studied the ridges and patterns that they had made in the clay. In 1891, Juan Vucetich suggested to start fingerprinting criminals to keep the prints on record. The following year, Vucetich identified a print from a woman who killed her two sons. Investigators found her print and were able to correctly match her identity. Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, wrote and published the first book about fingerprints. He wrote about how every individual has a unique print by the certain traits of each fingerprint (History of Fingerprints, 2012). The popularity of fingerprints grew greatly in the United States in the early 1900s. Police departments and the FBI began to use the...
Fingerprints are the very basis for criminal identification and conviction in every police agency on earth. Fingerprint evidence represents one of the most important pieces of evidence found at the scene of a crime, and can be used to determine the steps that the suspect took while committing the crime, but also has the ability to rule out suspects, or to eventually lead to the offender. The idea that no two individuals can have identical fingerprints is accepted by the courts and can lead to a fingerprint being the single piece of evidence in a crime that will lead to a conviction. Although, in recent years, the reliability and validity of using finger printing as evidence has been questioned by a variety scientists and also the media.
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
The invention of biometrics has revolutionized 21st century cyber security like never before and has become an integral part of modern society. Biometrics recognizes an individual’s physical and behavioral characteristics through fingerprint scanning, handprint scanning, voice recognition, etc. However, the problem with biometrics is often times its reliability can be questionable. This issue comes with plenty of symptoms because it can be unreliable in a variety of ways. Previous attempts in finding solutions fail to recognize the replication of data is possible. By solving this problem, security can be ensured more than it is now. Therefore, the advancement of biometrics can only be beneficial. Action does not have to be taken immediately,
“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.