Biometrics has been widely used today as an efficient safety mechanism. This term is also used as a way of uniquely identifying an individual through their physical or behavioral characteristics.
In security matters, biometrics is used for recognition, criminal identification, control of access to data and devices, etc. Because each person is unique and has unique characteristics in both physical and behavioral aspects. It has proven to be a successful way to aid in the safety of businesses, government institutions, and other areas.
Biometric devices, such as fingerprint readers, consist of:
- Reading or scanning apparatus
- Software that converts scanned information to digital form and compares common points
- A database that stores the biometric date for comparison.
Physical Biometric
Biometric systems may require identification through different characteristics of a person’s body, such as the eyes, fingerprints, retina, iris of the eyes or even the palm of the hand. It is also possible that biometric systems can identify someone by means of voice, way of walking, way to react to scares, etc.
- Veins of the hands – This feature is very reliable for the recognition of people.
- Fingerprint – is the most common form of identification. This is fastest method for recognition of person Unfortunately the reliability in this method is very low;
- Iris – While requiring expensive equipment for analysis, the iris is a very reliable feature to identify people.
- Retina – identification through the retina is already widely used in high security systems. It is totally reliable and the retina is also unchanged. The problems are due to the inconvenience in obtaining an image of the retina and the high financial cost required;
- Hand geometry – less reliable than fingerprint, recognition through palmar geometry faces.
In behavioral biometrics, the study for identifying people is much more complex. This is because this identification is made based on the way in which each person reacts to different situations. For example, some, when they are suddenly cry ,aggressive, and silent. It is also possible that biometric systems, which are still being refined will identify an individual only by the way they walk, move their hands or holding their hair. Scientists believe that in the near future, devices that perform this work may replace some fallible biometrics systems based on physical characteristics.
