The
Biometric Consortium's charter was formally
approved on December 7, 1995, by the
Facilities Protection Committee, a committee
that reports to the Security Policy Board
through the Security Policy Forum. The
Security Policy Board was established by
Presidential Decision Directive/NSC-29 on
September 16, 1994, for the coordination,
formulation, evaluation, and oversight of US
national security policy. The Security
Policy Board reports to the Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs.
"Biometrics
are automated methods of recognizing a
person based on a physiological or
behavioral characteristic."
Examples of
human traits used for biometric recognition
include fingerprints, speech, face, retina,
iris, handwritten signature, hand geometry,
and wrist veins.
Biometric
recognition can be used in
identification
mode, where the biometric system
identifies a person from the entire enrolled
population by searching a database for a
match.
A system
also can be used in
verification
mode, where the biometric system
authenticates a person's claimed identity
from his/her previously enrolled pattern.
Using
biometrics for identifying and
authenticating human beings offers some
unique advantages. Only biometric
authentication bases an identification on an
intrinsic part of a human being. Tokens,
such as smart cards, magnetic stripe cards,
physical keys, and so forth, can be lost,
stolen, duplicated, or left at home.
Passwords can be forgotten, shared, or
observed.
While all
biometric systems have their own advantages
and disadvantages, there are some common
characteristics needed to make a biometric
system usable.
First,
the biometric must be based upon a
distinguishable trait. For example,
for nearly a century, law enforcement has
used fingerprints
to identify people. There is a great deal of
scientific data supporting the idea that
"no two fingerprints
are alike."
Newer
methods, even those with a great deal of
scientific support, such as DNA-based
genetic matching, sometimes do not hold up
in court.
Another key
aspect is how
user-friendly is the system?
Most people find it acceptable to have their
pictures taken by video cameras or to speak
into a microphone. In the United States,
using a fingerprint sensor does not seem to
be much of a problem. In some other
countries, however, there is strong cultural
opposition to touching something that has
been touched by many other people.
While cost
is always a concern, most implementers today
are sophisticated enough to understand that
it is not only the initial cost of the
sensor or the matching software that is
involved. Often, the life-cycle support cost
of providing system administration support
and an enrollment operator can overtake the
initial cost of the hardware. Also of key
importance is accuracy. Some terms that are
used to describe the accuracy of biometric
systems include
false-acceptance rate (percentage
of impostors accepted),
false-rejection rate
(percentage of authorized users
rejected), and equal-error rate (when
the decision threshold is adjusted so that
the false- acceptance rate equals the
false-rejection rate).
When
discussing the accuracy of a biometric
system, it is often beneficial to talk about
the equal-error rate or at least to consider
the false-acceptance rate and
false-rejection rate together. For many
systems, the threshold can be adjusted to
ensure that virtually no impostors will be
accepted. Unfortunately, this often means an
unreasonably high number of authorized users
will be rejected.
To
summarize, a good biometric system is one
that is low cost, fast, accurate, and easy
to use."
We at
Biometrics Direct believe our solutions are
among the best in the industry.
A special
emphasis of our company’s vision is the
utilization of advanced biometric technology
to increase the security of our clients’
homes, workplaces, networks and data. The
small and medium business environments make
up the bulk of the US economy and their
security is fundamental to the defense of
our national financial system. Effective
solutions must offer increased security of
data, networks and access to facilities
while maintaining personal privacy.
