What is Biometric

What is Biometric

Biometrics is the science and technology of measuring and analyzing biological data. In information technology, biometrics refers to technologies that measure and analyze human body characteristics, such as DNA, fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements, for authentication purposes.
Authentication by biometric verification is becoming increasingly common in corporate and public security systems, consumer electronics and point of sale (POS) applications. In addition to security, the driving force behind biometric verification has been convenience.
Biometric devices, such as fingerscanners, consist of:
• A reader or scanning device
• Software that converts the scanned information into digital form and compares match points
• A database that stores the biometric data for comparison
To prevent identity theft, biometric data is usually encrypted when it's gathered. Here's how biometric verification works on the back end: To convert the biometric input, a software application is used to identify specific points of data as match points. The match points in the database are processed using an algorithm that translates that information into a numeric value. The database value is compared with the biometric input the end user has entered into the scanner and authentication is either approved or denied.

What is Fingerprint Identification?

Identification by fingerprints relies on pattern matching followed by the detection of certain ridge characteristics, also so known as Galton details, points of identity, or minutiae, and the comparison of the relative positions of these minutiae points with a reference print, usually an inked impression of a suspect's print. There are three basic ridge characteristics, the ridge ending, the bifurcation and the dot (or island).



Identification points consist of bifurcations, ending ridges, dots, ridges and islands. A single rolled fingerprint may have as many as 100 or more identification points that can be used for identification purposes. There is no exact size requirement as the number of points found on a fingerprint impression depend on the location of the print. As an example the area immediately surrounding a delta will probably contain more points per square millimetre than the area near the tip of the finger which tends to not have that many points.

In image 1 we see part of a fully rolled fingerprint. Notice that the edges are cut-off so you can safely assume that this is not a fully rolled impression. If you take a look at image 2 you can see that I have sectioned out the centre portion of this impression and labelled 10 points of identification. That was not all the points found but simply the ones that could be mapped easily without cluttering up the image.

First, image 1 and image 2 are both taken from the same image. In real life you would have impressions made at separate times and subject to different pressure distortions. Secondly, these images are relatively clean and clear where many of the actually crime scene prints are anything but clear. Last you have to consider that this is an easy comparison because you are blessed with having a core pattern and a delta when in some cases you may have a latent that could be a fingertip, palm or even foot impression.

What is Facial Recognition?

Facial recognition technology works by mapping the underlying bone structure of the face, for example, the distances between eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The measurements are then digitally coded to be used for comparison and verification purposes.
A facial recognition device is one that views an image or video of a person and compares it to one that is in the database. It does this by comparing structure, shape and proportions of the face; distance between the eyes, nose, mouth and jaw; upper outlines of the eye sockets; the sides of the mouth; location of the nose and eyes; and the area surrounding the check bones.

Upon enrolment in a facial recognition program, several pictures are taken of the subject at different angles and with different facial expressions. At time of verification and identification the subject stands in front of the camera for a few seconds, and then the image is compared to those that have been previously recorded.



To prevent a subject from using a picture or mask when being scanned in a facial recognition program, some security measures have been put into place. When the user is being scanned, they may be asked to blink, smile or nod their head. Another security feature would be the use of facial thermography to record the heat in the face.

The main facial recognition methods are: feature analysis, neural network, eigenfaces, automatic face processing.

What is Iris Recognition?

Iris Recognition is a method of biometric authentication that uses pattern-recognition techniques based on high-resolution images of the irrides of an individual's eyes.

Not to be confused with another, less prevalent, ocular-based technology, retina scanning, iris recognition uses camera technology, with subtle infrared illumination reducing specular reflection from the convex cornea, to create images of the detail-rich, intricate structures of the iris. Converted into digital templates, these images provide mathematical representations of the iris that yield unambiguous positive identification of an individual.

Iris recognition efficacy is rarely impeded by glasses or contact lenses. Iris technology has the smallest outlier (those who cannot use/enroll) group of all biometric technologies. Because of its speed of comparison, iris recognition is the only biometric technology well-suited for one-to-many identification. A key advantage of iris recognition is its stability, or template longevity, as, barring trauma, a single enrollment can last a lifetime.

What is Palm Vein Authentication?

Palm vein authentication uses the vascular patterns of the palm as personal identification data. Palm vein information is hard to duplicate because veins are internal to the human body. Palm vein authentication technology offers a high level of accuracy, and delivers the following results: a false rejection rate (FRR) of 0.01% and a false acceptance rate (FAR) of less than 0.00008%, using the data of 150,000 palms. Several banks in Japan have used palm vein authentication technology for customer identification since July 2004. In addition, this technology has been integrated into door security systems as well as other applications.



Palm Vein authentication is one of the vascular pattern authentication technologies. Vascular pattern authentication includes vein pattern authentication using the vein patterns of the palm, back of the hand, or fingers as personal identification data, and retina recognition using the vascular patterns at the back of the eye as personal identification.

The vascular pattern used in this authentication technology refers to the image of vessels within the body that can be seen as a random mesh at the surface of the body. Inasmuch as everyone has vessels, vascular pattern authentication can be applied to almost all people. If vascular patterns were compared to the features used in other biometric authentication technologies, such as the face, iris, fingerprint ,voice, and so on, the only difference would be whether the feature is at the surface of the body. Consequently, Vascular patterns, cannot be stolen by photographing, tracing, or recording them . This means that forgery would be extremely difficult under ordinary conditions.



Vein Patterns are unique to each individual; even identical twins have different vein patterns. Furthermore, vein patterns do not change within a human's lifetime except in the case of injury or disease.

What is Retina recognition?

Retina recognition technology captures and analyzes the patterns of blood vessels on the thin nerve on the back of the eyeball that processes light entering through the pupil. Retinal patterns are highly distinctive traits. Every eye has its own totally unique pattern of blood vessels; even the eyes of identical twins are distinct. Although each pattern normally remains stable over a person's lifetime, it can be affected by disease such as glaucoma, diabetes, high blood pressure, and autoimmune deficiency syndrome.

The fact that the retina is small, internal, and difficult to measure makes capturing its image more difficult than most biometric technologies. An individual must position the eye very close to the lens of the retina-scan device, gaze directly into the lens, and remain perfectly still while focusing on a revolving light while a small camera scans the retina through the pupil. Any movement can interfere with the process and can require restarting. Enrollment can easily take more than a minute. The generated template is only 96 bytes, one of the smallest of the biometric technologies.

One of the most accurate and most reliable of the biometric technologies, it is used for access control in government and military environments that require very high security, such as nuclear weapons and research sites. However, the great degree of effort and cooperation required of users has made it one of the least deployed of all the biometric technologies. Newer, faster, better retina recognition technologies are being developed.

What is Voice Recognition?

Voice recognition is "the technology by which sounds, words or phrases spoken by humans are converted into electrical signals, and these signals are transformed into coding patterns to which meaning has been assigned" [ADA90]. While the concept could more generally be called "sound recognition", we focus here on the human voice because we most often and most naturally use our voices to communicate our ideas to others in our immediate surroundings. In the context of a virtual environment, the user would presumably gain the greatest feeling of immersion, or being part of the simulation, if they could use their most common form of communication, the voice. The difficulty in using voice as an input to a computer simulation lies in the fundamental differences between human speech and the more traditional forms of computer input. While computer programs are commonly designed to produce a precise and well-defined response upon receiving the proper (and equally precise) input, the human voice and spoken words are anything but precise. Each human voice is different, and identical words can have different meanings if spoken with different inflections or in different contexts. Several approaches have been tried, with varying degrees of success, to overcome these difficulties.

What is Forensic DNA Testing?

1. How is DNA Identification Done?

DNA forensics has grown in technology and scope.
Human genetic code is largely the same, but there is enough variation for identification. DNA forensics is done by comparing the code sequences for only 13 particular DNA segments, known to have the highest number of individual variations. Theoretically, the method is not 100 percent reliable, but in practice it is a matter of high probability that, if all the sequences in the two samples match, they are likely from the same person.

2. What is DNA Profiling or DNA Fingerprinting?

DNA fingerprinting is a hotly debated topic.

DNA profiling uses the same 13 regions to register an individual's unique genetic material, which is kept in a database for future use.

3. What Are Other Uses For DNA Testing?

DNA can be used in a variety of practical instances.
DNA forensics can be used in identifying victims of disasters, determining endangered species, establishing paternity and relatives, registering pedigrees of animals and plants, and establishing historical migrations of people and animals.