What is Biometrics?

Derived from the Greek words “Bio”: Life and “Metric”: to measure. Biometrics is the science which automated use of physiological features or behavioral of human body to determine or verify the identity of individual.
There are two types of biometrics

  • Physical Biometrics – Data drive form the direct measurement of a part of the human body like:
    • Fingerprints - measures the unique pattern of lines on a person’s finger
    • Face - Facial recognition is a form of computer vision that uses faces to attempt to identify a person or verify a person’s claimed identity.
    • Eyes - measures the iris patter in the colored part of the eye & measures the blood vessel patterns in the back of the eye
    • DNA
  • Behavioral Biometrics – Based on data derived from an action and indirectly measured characteristics of the human body like:
    • Voice - measures the vocal characteristics of a person using a specific phrase
    • Keystroke

Two main uses for Biometrics, first Identification -“Who is X?” accomplished by system performing a “one-to-many” search, and the second one is Verification – answer the question “Is this X?” accomplished by the system performing a “one-to-one” search. Accuracy is the most critical characteristic of a biometric identifying verification system. If the system cannot accurately separate authentic persons from impostors, it should not even be termed a biometric identification system. There are two types of accuracy:

  • Usability Metrics
    • Failure to Enroll (FTE) Errors occur when the technology is unable to read the characteristics of a given person. They are based upon the quality of the data obtained The failure to enroll rate is multiplied by the number of expected users
    • Failure to Acquire (FTA) occurs when the technology is not presented with sufficient usable data to make a decision. Those who are enrolled but are mistakenly rejected after many verification/identification attempts count for the Failure To Acquire (FTA) rate. either accidentally or on purpose
  • Performance Metrics
    • False Acceptance Rate (FAR): This determines how often an intruder can successfully bypass the biometric authentication. Non authorized person is accepted as authorized. False Accept Rates claimed for today’s biometric access systems range from 0.0001% to 0.1%. A lower rate is more secure and more likely to present a real deterrent; for example, an FAR of 0.01% states that the chance of fooling the system is 1:10000.
    • False Rejection Rate (FRR): This signifies how often a real user will not be verified successfully. Authorized person is rejected access. The False Reject Rates quoted for current biometric systems range from 0.00066% to 1.0%. A high rate translates into more user retries; hence usability suffers.

In conclusion, Biometrics is a technology that can simplify the process of authentication and can be best used in situations where specific identity or exception identity is desired.