SUBMITTED BYMs. Afreen M. Solkar

GUIDED BYMs. Nazneen Akhtar.

SEMINARREPORT ON

BIOMETRICS

Dr. RAFIQ ZAKARIA CAMPUS

Maulana Azad PG & Research Centre, Aurangabad

Department of M.Sc. Computer Sci-ence

Seminar Reporton

“BIOMETRICS”

Submittedby

Afreen M. Solkar

Guidedby

Ms. Nazneen Akhter

As an Academic Activity

during

M.Sc. IV Semester (Computer Science)

2009-10

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University,

Aurangabad. Dr. RAFIQ ZAKARIA CAMPUS

Maulana Azad PG & Research Centre, Aurangabad

Department of M.Sc. Computer Sci-ence

Seminar ReportOn

“BIOMETRICS”

SubmittedBy

Afreen M. Solkar

GuidedBy

Ms. Nazneen Akhter

As an Academic Activity

During

M.Sc. IV Semester (Computer Science)

2009-10

Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University,Aurangabad

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It gives me a great pleasure to express my deep sense of gratitude and immense

thankfulness to almighty God involving my confidence and sense of excitement about my work.

I express my thanks to my esteemed guide Ms.Nazneen Akhtar lecturer in Depart-

ment of Computer Science for her constant interest, encouragement and valuable guidance inspiring

my confidence and sense of excitement completing work.

I express my profound gratitude to our Head of Department Dr.A.R Khan the incharge

of Post Graduate and Research centre, Maulana Azad College, Aurangabad who has always been a

source of inspiration.

I am extremely thankful to Mrs.Shaikh Adiba Saher and Mr. Siddiqui Zia for their in-

valuable help and guidance during the academic year.

I also express my thanks to Mr. Maqdoom Farooqui, Principal, Maulana Azad College

Aurangabad for his encouragement and guidance.

I am also thankful to Mr.Ajaz the non-teaching staff who co-operated in my labora-

tory work. I express my thanks to my friends who helped me to complete my seminar report.

Thanks to my beloved parents for their constant encouragement and blessings to

complete this work successfully.

Once again I wish to thank one and all who helped me in completing my objective.

Ms. AFREEN M. SOLKAR

CONTENTS

AN OVERVIEW OF BIOMETRICS

IT’S DEFINITIONIT’S INTRODUCTION

IT’S HISTORY

HOW DID IT START?BASIC CATEGORIES OF BIOMETRICS

TYPES OF BIOMETRICS IN USECURRENT AND FUTURE TRENDS

THE BASIC BLOCK DIAGRAM

HOW IT WORKS?HYBRID AUTHENTICATION

BIOMETRICS SYSTEM MODEL

AUTHENTICATION METHODS

HOW TO EVALUATE BIOMETRIC SYSTEM

TYPES OF ERRORS IN BIOMETRICS

ITS APPLICATIONS

ADVANTAGES: WHY OPT FOR BIOMETRICS TECHNOLOGY

DRAWBACKS OF BIOMETRICS

CONCLUSIONREFERENCES

BIOMETRICS

AN OVERVIEW OF BIOMETRICS

Identification and verification have long been accomplished by showing something you have, such as a license or a passport. Sometimes it also required something you know, such as a password or a PIN. As we move into a time when we need more secure and accurate measures, we begin to look at using something you are: biometrics.

The term "biometrics" is derived from the Greek words bio (life) and metric (to mea-sure). Biometrics refers to the automatic identification of a person based on his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics. This method of identification is preferred over traditional methods involv-ing passwords and PIN numbers for its accuracy and case sensitiveness. A biometric system is essen-tially a pattern recognition system which makes a personal identification by determining the authen-ticity of a specific physiological or behavioral characteristic possessed by the user. An important is-sue in designing a practical system is to determine how an individual is identified.

Depending on the context, a biometric system can be either a verification (authenti-cation) system or an identification system. Verification involves confirming or denying a person's claimed identity while in identification, one has to establish a person's identity. Biometric systems are divided on the basis of the authentication medium used. They are broadly divided as identifica-tions of Hand Geometry, Vein Pattern, Voice Pattern, DNA, Signature Dynamics, Finger Prints, Iris Pattern and Face Detection. These methods are used on the basis of the scope of the testing medium, the accuracy required and speed required. Every medium of authentication has its own ad-vantages and shortcomings. With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technol-ogy, it is necessary to restrict unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of sensitive/personal data. Biometric techniques being potentially able to augment this restriction are enjoying a renewed in-terest.

There are several techniques that can be applied for verifying and confirming a user's iden-tity. They can be broadly classified as below:

Something the user knows, such as a password or PIN Something the user has, such as a smart card or ATM card Something that's part of the user, such as a fingerprint or iris. The strongest authentication in-

volves a combination of all three The technology used for identification of a user based on a physical characteristic, such as a finger -print, iris, face, voice or handwriting is called Biometrics.

Advancements in technology has made possible to build rugged and reliable Biomet-ric authentication systems, and the costs of biometrics authentication systems have been dropping as reliability is improving.

The key steps involved in a biometric authentication system are:

Image capture - Using scanning devices available in the market Image recognition - Using standard algorithms Template creation - Using standard algorithms Matching - Using application and standard algorithms

ITS DEFINITION

Biometric definition is best explained by understanding its nomenclature.The word "biometrics" is derived from the Greek words 'bios' and 'metric' ; which means life and measurement respectively. This directly translates into "life measurement".

General science has included biometrics as a field of statistical development since the early twentieth century. A very good example is the statistical analysis of data from agricultural field experiments comparing the yields of different varieties of wheat. In this way, science is taking a life measurement of the agriculture to ultimately determine more efficient methods of growth.

Here's a quick definition of biometrics: As it pertains to security, biometrics is an emerging field of technology devoted to identification of individuals by employing biological traits, such as those used for iris scanning, fingerprinting, face recognition, and others.

ITS INTRODUCTION While the word “Biometrics” sounds very new and “High -Tech”, it stands for a very old and simple concept: Human Recognition. In technical terms, Biometrics is the automated tech-nique of measuring the physical characteristics or personal trait of an individual and comparing that characteristic or trait to a database for purpose of recognizing that individual. Biometrics refers to the automatic identification of a person based on his/her physiological or behavioral characteristics.

This method of identification is preferred over traditional methods involving pass-words and PIN numbers for its accuracy and case sensitiveness. A biometric system is essentially a pattern recognition system which makes a personal identification by determining the authenticity of a specific physiological or behavioral characteristic possessed by the user. An important issue in de-signing a practical system is to determine how an individual is identified.

The terms "Biometrics" and "Biometry" have been used since early in the 20th cen-tury to refer to the field of development of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences. Recently, these terms have also been used to refer to the emerging field of information technology devoted to automated identification of individuals us-ing biological traits, such as those based on retinal or iris scanning, voice patterns, dynamic signa-tures, fingerprints, face recognition, or hand measurements, especially for authentication purposes. Thus biometrics can be defined as the science and technology of measuring and statistically analyz-ing biological data. They are measurable physiological and / or behavioral characteristics that can be utilized to verify the identity of an individual. For a layman, it could be said that biometrics are the science of measuring physical and/or behavioral characteristics that are unique to each individual and they verify that an individual is who he or she claims to be.

Often seen in science-fiction action adventure movies, face pattern matchers and body scanners seem about to emerge as replacements for computer passwords. Thus biometric techniques are of interest in any area where it is important to verify the true identity of an individ-ual. Initially, these techniques were employed primarily in specialist high security applications, how-ever we are now seeing their use and proposed use in a much broader range of public facing situa-tions.

Depending on the context, a biometric system can be either a verification (authenti-cation) system or an identification system. Verification involves confirming or denying a person's claimed identity while in identification, one has to establish a person's identity. Biometric systems are divided on the basis of the authentication medium used. They are broadly divided as identifica-tions of Hand Geometry, Vein Pattern, Voice Pattern, DNA, Signature Dynamics, Finger Prints, Iris Pattern and Face Detection. These methods are used on the basis of the scope of the testing medium, the accuracy required and speed required. Every medium of authentication has its own ad-vantages and shortcomings. With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technol-ogy, it is necessary to restrict unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of sensitive/personal data. Biometric techniques being potentially able to augment this restriction are enjoying a renewed in-terest. Biometrics comprises methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more in-trinsic physical or behavioral traits.

ITS HISTORY Historically, the term Biometry is related to biological sciences and consists in the application of statistical methods applied to a wide range of measurable characteristics in biology. It's also called biostatistics, with the difference that biometry refers particularly to medicine and agriculture. Nowadays it's more commonly related to Information Technology, consisting in electronic identification of human beings based on their physical or behavioral characteristics. To avoid confusion, the term Biometrics is used for IT systems, leaving biometry to be used for biostatistics. The term "biometrics" is derived from the Greek words bio (life) and metric (to mea-sure).

Biometrics is becoming an interesting topic now in regards to computer and network security, however the ideas of biometrics have been around for many years. Possibly the first known example of biometrics in practice was a form of finger printing being used in China in the 14th cen-tury, as reported by explorer Joao de Barros. He wrote that the Chinese merchants were stamping children's palm prints and footprints on paper with ink to distinguish the young children from one another. This is one of the earliest known cases of biometrics in use and is still being used today.

In the 1890s, an anthropologist named Alphonse Bertillion sought to fix the problem of identifying convicted criminals and turned biometrics into a distinct field of study. He developed 'Bertillonage', a method of bodily measurement which got named after him. The problem with iden -tifying repeated offenders was that the criminals often gave different aliases each time they were arrested. Bertillion realized that even if names changed, even if a person cut his hair or put on weight, certain elements of the body remained fixed, such as the size of the skull or the length of their fingers. His system was used by police authorities throughout the world, until it quickly faded when it was discovered that some people shared the same measurements and based on the mea-surements alone, two people could get treated as one.

After this, the police used finger printing, which was developed by Richard Edward Henry of Scotland Yard, instead. Essentially reverting to the same methods used by the Chinese for years. However the idea of biometrics as a field of study with useful identification applications was there and interest in it has grown.

Today we have the technology to realize the aims, and to refine the accuracy of bio -metric identification, and therefore the possibility of making it a viable field.

HOW DID IT START?

Biometric history indicates that the science did not originate at a single place. People all over the world were using the basics for mainly identifying individuals from each other. We'll ex-plain about biometric history in brief over the next few paragraphs. The history of biometrics dates back to a long time. Possibly the most primary known instance of biometrics in practice was a form of finger printing being used in China in the 14th century, as reported by explorer Joao de Barros.

Barros wrote that the Chinese merchants were stamping children's palm prints and footprints on paper with ink so as to differentiate the young children from one another. This is one of the most primitive known cases of biometrics in use and is still being used today. Apart from its Chinese genesis, use of biometrics was also noted elsewhere in the world. Up until the late 1800s, identification largely relied upon "photographic memory". In the 1890s, an anthro-pologist and police desk clerk in Paris, Alphonse Bertillon, decided to fix the problem of identifying convicted criminals and turned biometrics into a distinct field of study.

Bertillon developed a technique of multiple body measurements which later got named after him - Bertillonage. His method was then used by police authorities throughout the world, until it quickly faded when it was discovered that some people shared the same measure-ments and based on the measurements alone, two people could get treated as one. After the failure of Bertillonage, the police started using finger printing, which was developed by Richard Edward Henry of Scotland Yard, essentially reverting to the same methods used by the Chi-nese for years. (which still is going strong !)

Biometric history in the recent past (three decades) has seen drastic advancements and the technology have moved from a single method (fingerprinting) to more than ten prudent methods. Companies involved with new methods have grown into the hundreds and continue to im-prove their methods as the technology available to them also advances.

BASIC CATEGORIES OF BIOMETRICS

Reliable authorization and authentication has become an integral part of every man’s life for a number of routine applications. Biometrics is automated method of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Biometrics though in its nascent form has a number of tractable aspects like security, data integrity, fault tolerance and system recovery. It is considered a reliable solution for protecting the identity and the rights of individuals as it recognizes unique and immutable features. It can be divided into 2 basic categories:

PHYSIOLOGICAL

Examples of physical characteristics used in Biometrics include: Physiological are related to the shape of the body Chemical composition of body odor Facial features Features of the eye Retina Iris Finger prints Hand geometry Palm geometry DNA Odor/scent.

BEHAVIOURAL

Examples of behavioral characteristics used in Biometrics include:

Behavioral are related to the behavior of a person. Typing rhythm Gait Handwritten signature Keystrokes/Typing patterns Voiceprint

Strictly speaking, voice is also a physiological trait because every person has a differ-ent vocal tract, but voice recognition is mainly based on the study of the way a person speaks, com -monly classified as behavioral. Examples of personal traits used in biometrics include: Every person can be distinguished by these traits. So biometrics is best defined as measurable physiological and / or behavioral characteristics that can be utilized to verify the identity of an individual.

TYPES OF BIOMETRICS IN USE

BERTILLONAGE

The first type of biometrics came into form in 1890, created by an anthropologist named Alphonse Bertillon. He based his system on the claim that measurement of adult bones does not change after the age of 20. The method consisted of identifying people by taking various body measurements like a person’s height, arm length, length and breadth of the head, the length of different fingers, the length of forearms, etc. using calipers. However, the methodology was unreliable as non-unique measurements al-lowed multiple people to have same results, decreasing the accuracy and hence is no longer used. No longer used, bertillonage was a late 19th century method of identifying people by use of multiple bodily measurements. A person would go through a 20-60 minute measuring exam where they would have vari-ous body measurements taken: height, length, and breadth of the head, the length of different fingers, the length of forearms, etc. The results were then recorded and/or compared to a record database. Though all done by hand, the record filing and checking system was quite fast for its time.

The Bertillonage System, developed toward the end of the 19th century, was a very precise means of determining identity based on measurement, though it did not last long.

HAND / FINGER GEOMETRY

Hand Geometry utilizes a three dimensional record of length, width and height of the hand and /or fingers. The subject places a hand in an optical scanner, measurements are taken, and the results are converted into byte code. In effect a digital map of the outline of the person’s hand is created. A camera captures an image of the hand, with the help of a mirror to get also the edge. The silhouette of the hand is extracted, and some geometrical characteristics stored. Advantage of hand geometry is that it requires very little computer storage space as the memory requirements are limited and it is very user friendly. Disadvan-tages include the lack of uniqueness of hand geometry as compared to other biometrics. Also an injury to hand can cause the measurements to change, resulting in recognition problems.

Hand geometry is concerned with measuring the physical characteristics of the users hand and fingers, from a three-dimensional perspective. One of the most established methodologies; it offers a good balance of performance characteristics and is relatively easy to use. This methodology may be suitable where we have larger user bases or users who may access the system infrequently and may therefore be less disciplined in their approach to the system. Accuracy can be very high if desired. Hand geometry read-ers are deployed in a wide range of scenarios, including time and attendance recording where they have proved extremely popular. Ease of integration into other systems and processes, coupled to ease of use makes hand geometry an obvious first step for many biometric projects.

FINGERPRINT RECOGNITION

Fingerprint recognition is also known as “image acquisition”. In this part of the process, a user places his or her finger on a scanner. Numerous images of the fingerprint are then captured. It should be noted that during this stage, the goal is to capture images of the center of the fingerprint, which con-tains many of the unique features. All of the captured images are then converted into black and white im -ages. Fingerprints have long been used as means of recognition. It is one of the most used and familiar bio-metric methods. Fingerprint Recognition Technology or Fingerprint Authentication is a technique of verify-ing a match between two human fingerprints.

Fingerprint recognition or fingerprint authentication refers to the automated method of veri-fying a match between two human fingerprints. Fingerprints are one of many forms of biometrics used to identify an individual and verify their identity. This article touches on two major classes of algorithms (minu-tia and pattern) and four sensor designs (optical, ultrasonic, passive capacitance, and active capacitance). PATTERNSThe three basic patterns of fingerprint ridges are the arch, loop, and whorl.

The arch pattern. The loop pattern. The whorl pattern.

Pattern based algorithms compare the basic fingerprint patterns (arch, whorl, and loop) between a previ -ously stored template and a candidate fingerprint.

A fingerprint is the pattern of ridges that appear on the surface of the fingertip. It is perhaps the most popular and reliable biometric characteristic used for human authentication. These observations rely basically on two of its properties, namely, individuality and persistence. The former refers to the fact that the fingerprint is unique across individuals and across fingers of the same individual, whereas the second property means that the basic fingerprint characteristics do not change over time. Because of these reasons, fingerprint-based authentication systems have been widely adopted in many applications where high security levels are a need.

The fingerprint structure comprises two levels of features. At the most global level, the fingerprint features correspond to the patterns of ridges and valleys that appear on the fingerprint. These patterns are typically used for fingerprint classification purposes and they do not own any kind of properties for establishing the identity of an individual. Due to these facts, those patterns are denominated macro features. In a typical fingerprint image, the dark lines are related to the ridge patterns, whereas the brighter ones are referred to the valleys. The figure below shows some examples of valleys and ridges.

At the local level, the fingerprint features are known as minutiae. They correspond to the points where the ridge patterns either bifurcate (ridge bifurcations) or terminate abruptly (ridge endings). These features posse the discriminating information for establishing the individuality of fingerprints and therefore the identity of an individual. Some examples of minutiae are depicted in the figure below. Fingerprint Recognition Technology has many security applications in real world like it can be used in –

Network/PC Login Security

Web Page Security

Employee Recognition Systems

Time and Attendance Systems

Voting Solutions

A major advantage of finger imaging is the long time use of the finger print and its wide ac-ceptance by the public and law enforcement communities as a reliable means of human recognition. Disad-vantages of finger imaging includes the need for physical contact with the optical scanner, the possibility of poor quality images due to residue on the finger such as dirt and body oils as well as eroded fingerprints from scrapes, years of heavy labor, or mutilation.

SURVEILLANCE

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usu-ally of people and often in a surreptitious manner. It most usually refers to observation of individuals or groups by government organizations, but disease surveillance, for example, is monitoring the progress of a disease in a community.

The word surveillance may be applied to observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment (such as CCTV cameras), or interception of electronically transmitted information (such as Inter-net traffic or phone calls). It may also refer to simple, relatively no- or low-technology methods such as hu -man intelligence agents and postal interception.

Surveillance is very useful to governments and law enforcement to maintain social control, recognize and monitor threats, and prevent/investigate criminal activity.

TYPES OF SURVEILLANCE

Computer surveillance: Official seal of the Information Awareness Office -- a U.S. agency which developed technologies for surveillance .The vast majority of computer surveillance involves the

monitoring of data and traffic on the Internet. Telephones and mobile telephones: The official and unofficial tapping of telephone lines is

widespread. Human agents are not required to monitor most calls. Mobile phones are also com-monly used to collect location data.

Surveillance cameras: Surveillance cameras are video cameras used for the purpose of observ-ing an area. Surveillance cameras such as these are installed by the millions in many countries, and are nowadays monitored by automated computer programs instead of humans. Governments often initially claim that cameras are meant to be used for traffic control, but many of them end up using them for general surveillance.

FACE RECOGNITION

It is a biometric technique for automatic identification or verification of a person from a digi-tal image or a video frame from a video source. One of the ways to do this is by comparing selected facial features from the image and a facial database Face Recognition analyzes the characteristics of an individ-ual's face. Facial recognition uses features of the face such as the location and position of the nose, outlines of the eyes, areas of the cheekbones, and the mouth.

Face recognition uses mainly the following techniques: Facial geometry: uses geometrical characteristics of the face. May use several cameras to get better accu-racy (2D, 3D...) Skin pattern recognition (Visual Skin Print) Facial thermogram: uses an infrared camera to map the face temperatures Smile: recognition of the wrinkle changes when smiling

FACIAL GEOMETRYModels a human face created in terms of particular facial features like eyes, mouth, etc. and layout of

geometry of these features is computed. Face recognition is then a matter of matching constellations. Face Recogni-tion System is typically used in security systems and can be compared to other biometrics such as finger-print or eye iris recognition systems. Many different methods based on geometrical characteristics of the face have been developed such as "local feature analysis", "Eigenfaces or Principal Component Analysis".

SKIN PATTERN RECOGNITION

Visual Skin Print™ relies on standard hardware - most web-cams and higher resolution mass-market video cameras, connected to a PC, will work. Visual Skin Print™ is based on a simple yet powerful idea: using the details of the skin for authentication.

FACIAL THERMOGRAM

Facial thermogram requires an (expensive) infrared camera to detect the facial heat patterns that are unique to every human being. Technology Recognition Systems worked on that subject in 1996-1999. Now disappeared.

SMILE RECOGNITION

The data is used to produce an image of the face overlaid with tiny arrows that indicate how different areas of skin move during a smile. This movement is controlled by the pattern of muscles under the skin, and is not affected by the presence of make-up or the size of the subject's smile. The system is sensitive enough to produce such a map from muscle twitches even when people are trying to keep their expression.

TECHNIQUESTRADITIONAL: Some facial recognition algorithms identify faces by extracting landmarks, or features, from an image of the subject's face. 3-D: A newly emerging trend, claimed to achieve previously unseen accuracies, is three-dimen-sional face recognition. This technique uses 3-D sensors to capture information about the shape of a face.

One advantage of 3-D facial recognition is that it is not affected by changes in lighting like other techniques. It can also identify a face from a range of viewing angles, including a profile view.

DISADVANTAGE This recognition problem is made difficult by the great variability in head rotation and tilt, lighting intensity and angle, facial expression, aging, etc. Some other attempts at facial recognition by ma-chine have allowed for little or no variability in these quantities. Yet the method of correlation (or pattern matching) of unprocessed optical data, which is often used by some researchers, is certain to fail in cases where the variability is great. In particular, the correlation is very low between two pictures of the same person with two different head rotations.

VOICE OR SPEAKER RECOGNITION

Voice recognition involves taking the acoustic signal of person’s voice and converting it into

a unique digital code which can be the stored in a template. In practical terms, the user would first enroll in the voice recognition system by speaking an agreed-upon phrase. For future recognition, the exact same phrase is spoken and the signal is analyzed by the voice recognition system. Voice recognition systems are extremely well suited for verifying user access over a telephone.

Speaker recognition is the computing task of validating a user's claimed identity using char-acteristics extracted from their voices. Speaker recognition has a history dating back some four decades and uses the acoustic features of speech that have been found to differ between individuals. These acoustic patterns reflect both anatomy (e.g., size and shape of the throat and mouth) and learned behavioral pat-terns (e.g., voice pitch, speaking style).

There is a difference between speaker recognition (recognizing who is speaking) and speech recognition (recognizing what is being said). These two terms are frequently confused, as is voice recognition. Voice recognition is combination of the two where it uses learned aspects of a speaker’s voice to determine what is being said - such a system cannot recognize speech from random speakers very accurately, but it can reach high accuracy for individual voices it has been trained with. Voice authentication, also known as “speaker verification”, is defined as the automated verification of a person’s claimed identity, based on unique characteristics of their voice.

A simple microphone is enough to record the voice, then most of the algorithm are analyzing the voice spectrum. Do not confuse speaker/voice recognition with speech recognition. Speech recognition is the recognition of what you are saying, and not who you are. Voice and speech can be combined to get a better system

DISADVANTAGE Disadvantages of this biometric are that, not only is a fairly large byte code required, but people’s voices can change (for e.g.: when they are sick or in extreme emotional states). Also, phrases can be mis -spoken and background noises can interfere with the system Voice Authentication, not to be confused with voice recognition, is where software and hardware technology convert voice into text data that can be ana -lyzed by voice response systems and other computers. Voice authentication uses the unique characteristics of an individual's voice for positive identification.

IRIS RECOGNITION

Iris Recognition is another biometric authentication method that uses pattern recognition techniques based on high-resolution images of the irises of an individual's eyes. Converted into digital templates, these images provide mathematical representations of the iris that yield unambiguous positive identification of an individual. Iris recognition technology has become popular in security applications because of its ease of use, accuracy, and safety. Its most common use is controlling access to high-security areas. Iris recognition technology is currently used at physical access points demanding high security, such as airports, government buildings, and research laboratories.

Iris recognition is a method of biometric authentication that uses pattern-recognition tech-niques based on high-resolution images of the irises of an individual's eyes. Iris scanners use pattern-recognition techniques based on images of the irises of an individual's eyes.Iris Scanning uses the unique characteristics of the human iris to identify an individual. Iris scanning begins with a picture. A camera with an infrared imager is used to illuminate the eye and capture a high-resolution picture. The information about the iris is converted to an algorithm, which maps the iris's distinct patterns and characteristics.

Iris recognition uses the iris-the colored circle that surrounds the pupil of the eye-as the physical characteristics to be measured. The pattern of the iris is complex and unique in each person. Using standard video technology, its features can be quickly recorded from about nine inches away, thus elimi-nating the need for invasive physical contact. Software captures the identifying information from the iris and stores it in a 256 byte code.

TECHNOLOGY An iris-recognition algorithm first has to identify the approximately concentric circular outer

boundaries of the iris and the pupil in a photo of an eye. The set of pixels covering only the iris is then transformed into a bit pattern that preserves the information that is essential for a statistically meaningful comparison between two iris images. The mathematical methods used resemble those of modern lossy compression algorithms for photographic images. A practical problem of iris recognition is that the iris is usually partially covered by eyelids and eyelashes. In order to reduce the false-reject risk in such cases, additional algorithms are needed to identify the locations of eyelids and eyelashes and to exclude the bits in the resulting code from the comparison operation.

ADVANTAGES

Advantage of Iris recognition is that it stands out as perhaps the most “Hygienic” of the bio-metric technologies in that no part of the user’s body has to touch anything to operate the system. Disad -vantages of iris recognition include problems of user acceptance, the relative expense of the system as compared to other biometric technologies, and the relative memory intensive storage requirements.

DISADVANTAGES

Iris scanning is a relatively new technology and is incompatible with the very substantial in-vestment that the law enforcement and immigration authorities of some countries have already made into fingerprint recognition.

Iris recognition is very difficult to perform at a distance larger than a few meters and if the person to be identified is not cooperating by holding the head still and looking into the camera. However, several academic institutions and biometric vendors are developing products that claim to be able to iden-tify subjects at distances of up to 10 meters ("standoff iris" or "iris at a distance"). As with other photo-graphic biometric technologies, iris recognition is susceptible to poor image quality, with associated failure to enroll rates.

CURRENT AND FUTURE TRENDS

SMART CARDS

A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC), is any pocket-sized card with embed-ded integrated circuits which can process data. This implies that it can receive input which is processed — by way of the ICC applications — and delivered as an output. There are two broad categories of ICCs. Mem-ory cards contain only non-volatile memory storage components, and perhaps some specific security logic. Microprocessor cards contain volatile memory and microprocessor components. The card is made of plas-tic, generally PVC, but sometimes ABS. The card may embed a hologram to avoid counterfeiting. Using smart cards is also a form of strong security authentication for single sign-on within large companies and or-ganizations.

They are digital security pocket-sized cards with embedded integrated circuits which can process data. Thus smart cards can be used for identification, authentication, and data storage. It can also be used as a medium to provide a means of effecting business transactions in a flexible, secure, standard way with minimal human intervention. Smart card can provide strong authentication for single sign-on or enterprise single sign-on to computers, laptops, data with encryption, enterprise resource planning platforms such as SAP, etc.

RETINA RECOGNITION

Technology uses infrared scanning and compares images of the blood vessels in the back of the eye, the choroid vasculature. The eye’s inherent isolation and protection from the external environment as an internal organ of the body is a benefit. Retina scan is used in high-end security applications like military installations and power plants. A retinal scan is a biometric technique that uses the unique patterns on a person's retina to identify them. It is not to be confused with another ocular-based technology, iris recognition.

Retinal scanning involves an electronic scan of the retina – the innermost layer of the wall of the eyeball. By emitting a beam of incandescent light that bounces off the person’s retina and returns to the scanner, a retinal scanning system quickly maps the eye’s blood vessels pattern and records it into an easily retrievable digitized database. Since this pattern is unique in each person, identification can be precise. Retina Scanning involves the layer of blood vessels at the back of the eye. This technique involves a low-level light reflected through an optical coupler to scan the unique identifiers of the retina. Retinal scanning requires the user to look into a scanner and focus on a specific point.

USESRetinal scanners are typically used for authentication and identification purposes. Retinal

scanning has been utilized by several government agencies including the FBI, CIA, and NASA. However, in recent years, retinal scanning has become more commercially popular. Retinal scanning has been used in prisons, for ATM identity verification and the prevention of welfare fraud. Retinal scanning also has medi-cal application.

ADVANTAGES Low occurrence of false positives Extremely low (almost 0%) false negative rates Highly reliable because no two people have the same retinal pattern Speedy results: Identity of the subject is verified very quickly

DISADVANTAGES Measurement accuracy can be affected by a disease such as cataracts Measurement accuracy can also be affected by severe astigmatism Scanning procedure is perceived by some as invasive Not very user friendly Subject being scanned must be close to the camera optics High equipment costs

HAND WRITING OR SIGNATURE RECOGNITION

Signature recognition, or signature dynamics, uses computer technology to record compo-nents of an individual’s signature such as pen/stylus speed, pressure, direction in signature and the points at which the pen is lifted from the paper. These behavioral patterns are captured through a specially de-signed pen and compared with a template of process patterns. Handwriting recognition, or signature recog-

nition also called Dynamic Signature Verification (DSV) analyses the way a user signs. The signing features such as speed, velocity and pressure exerted by a hand holding a pen are as important as the static shape of the finished signature. It is an instance of writer recognition, which has been accepted as irrefutable evidence in courts of laws. The way a person signs his name is known to be a characteristic of that individual. Approach to signature verification is based on features like number of interior contours and number of vertical slope components. Signatures are behavioral biometric that can change with time, influenced by physical and emotional conditions of the signatories. Furthermore, professional forgers can reproduce signatures to fool an unskilled eye and hence is not the preferred choice.

DISADVANTAGEDisadvantage of signature recognition includes problems of long-term reliability, the lack of accuracy and cost. Dynamic Signature Verification is the process used to identify an individual's hand-written signature by analyzing the shape, speed, velocity and pressure of the act of signing. The main difference between plain signature verification and dynamic signature verification is that the former is only the comparison of how the actual signature looks, while dynamic signature verification analyzes how the signature was made.

SKIN TEXTURE ANALYSIS

Another emerging trend uses the visual details of the skin, as captured in standard digital or scanned images. This technique, called skin texture analysis, turns the unique lines, patterns, and spots ap -parent in a person’s skin into a mathematical space. Tests have shown that with the addition of skin texture analysis, performance in recognizing faces can increase 20 to 25 percent.

VEIN, VASCULAR PATTERN IDENTIFICATION

It Uses a non-harmful near infrared light to produce an image of one's vein pattern in their face, wrist, or hand, as veins are relatively stable through one's life. It is a non-invasive, computerized comparison of shape and size of subcutaneous blood vessel structures in the back of a hand. The vein "tree" pattern, picked up by a video camera, is sufficiently idiosyncratic to function as a personal code that is extremely difficult to duplicate or discover. The sensor requires no physical contact, providing excellent convenience and no performance degradation even with scars or hand contamination.

Verification speed of the system is fast (0.4 sec/person) and the False Acceptance Rate is FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR) are extremely low at 0.0001 % and 0.1% respectively. [ Though minimally used at the moment, vascular pattern scanners can be found in testing at major military installations and is being considered by some established companies in the security industry and multi-outlet retailers.

KEY STROKE DYNAMICS

Keystroke dynamics, also called typing rhythms or typing recognition, analyses the way a person types. Users enroll by typing the same word or word a number of times. Verification is based on the con -cept that the rhythm with which a person types is distinctive.

GAIT

Gait recognition is particularly studied as it may enable identification at distance. The final objective is to recognize persons using standard cameras in any conditions. Most of the studies are still at laboratory level, capturing gait samples under controlled conditions.

HEAD PRINT

After separation of hair area from the background in overhead imagery, extraction of fea-tures that characterize the color and texture of hair is done for identification purpose. Although the visual appearance of hair cannot be used as a long-term biometric due to the no rigid nature of hair, a realistic scenario where the time interval between gallery and probe imagery is short enough can achieve reliable performance.

EAR RECOGNITION

Ear recognition uses mainly two features: The shape of the ear: ear geometry The canal of the ear which returns specific echo .Ear geometry recognition uses the shape of the ear to per-form identification.

LIPS IDENTIFICATION

Lips are not well-known as biometric features, and not very much studied. Nevertheless, they are interesting from several point of views: Lip prints are know in forensic science to be different for each individual, as fingerprints. Lip movement helps identification associated with speaker recognition. Lip shape can be used as a stand-alone feature to perform authentication

NAIL RECOGNITION

Nail recognition is an emerging biometric technology, which has not been not very much studied. Mainly two methods (and two companies) exist: Nail bed : The nail bed is an essentially parallel epidermal structure located directly beneath the fingernail formed with parallel lines spaced at intervals. During normal growth, the fingernail travels over the nailbed.Nail RFID : The chip is able to sense the electrical capacitance of the nail and flesh below itself, which de-pends on the individual.

BODY ODOUR RECOGNITION

It’s absolutely clear that people with differing immunity genes produce different body odors Electronic/artificial noses: developed as a system for the automated detection and classification of odors, vapors, gases.

DNA MATCHING

Although it is the ultimate biometrics (excepted for twins!) as everyone has DNA, this is not considered as a biometric technology because it is not yet fully automated (and fast).

Length and protein sequence are analyzed to generate a “DNA profile” and compared against other profiles

It is used in Law enforcement, paternity cases.

Probability of 2 people having the same DNA sequence is 6billion to 1 – unless they’re identical twins

• DNA has been called the “ultimate identifier”.• Identify information from every cell in the body in a digital form. • Not yet fully automated, not fast and expensive.• Theoretical limitation: Identical twins have the same DNA.

• Privacy issue – DNA contains information about race, paternity, and medical conditions for certain disease.

THE BASIC BLOCK DIAGRAM

It is possible to understand if a human characteristic can be used for biometrics in terms of the following parameters:

Universality – each person should have the characteristic. Uniqueness – is how well the biometric separates individuals from another. Permanence – measures how well a biometric resists aging and other variance over time. Collectability – ease of acquisition for measurement. Performance – accuracy, speed, and robustness of technology used. Acceptability – degree of approval of a technology. Circumvention – ease of use of a substitute.

The first time an individual uses a biometric system is called an enrollment. During the en-rollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. In subsequent uses, biometric information is detected and compared with the information stored at the time of enrollment. Note that it is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric system is to be robust.

The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and the system; it has to ac-quire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired. The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g. removing background noise), to use some kind of nor -malization, etc. In the third block features needed are extracted. This step is an important step as the cor-rect features need to be extracted in the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of the relevant characteristics extracted

from the source. Elements of the biometric measurement that are not used in the comparison algorithm are discarded in the template to reduce the file size and to protect the identity of the enrollee.

HOW IT WORKS?

Biometric devices consist of a reader or scanning device, software that converts the gathered information into digital form, and a database that stores the biometric data for comparison with previous records. When converting the biometric input, the software identifies specific points of data as match points. The match points are processed using an algorithm into a value that can be compared with biomet-ric data in the database.

Biometric systems consist of both hardware and software; the hardware captures the salient human characteristic, and the software interprets the resulting data and determines acceptability. Practi-cally all biometric systems work in the same manner. First a person is enrolled into a database using the specified method. Information about a certain characteristic of the human is captured. This information is usually placed through an algorithm that turns the information into a code that the database stores. When the person needs to be identified, the system will take the information about the person again, translates this new information with the algorithm , and then compares the new code with the ones in the database to discover a match and hence, identification.

1. Portal – protects some assets. (i.e. the gate at an entrance of a building)2. Central Controlling Unit – receives authentication request, controls the biometric authentication

process, and returns the result of user authentication3. Input device – biometric data acquisition process that verifies user’s liveness and quality of the sam-

ple4. Feature extraction – processes the data and outputs a set of feature suitable for the matching algo-

rithm.

5. Storage – typically some kind of database that contains biometric templates6. Matching algorithm – compares the current features with the stored template and translates the in-

formation into a numeric value

For example, a guy’s fingerprint is scanned. An algorithm turns the fingerprint into a code which is stored in the database. Later, a person needs to be identified to gain access into an area. His/her fingerprint is scanned again. The system turns the fingerprint into a code. The code is compared with the other codes in the database. Look, the new code matches the code of a guy. The person must be Guy! Hence Guy is identified and allowed into the area.

HYBRID AUTHENTICATION

Reliable authorization and authentication has become an integral part of every man’s life for a number of routine applications. Biometrics is automated method of recognizing a person based on a phys-iological or behavioral characteristic. Biometrics though in its nascent form has a number of tractable as-pects like security, data integrity, fault tolerance and system recovery. It is considered a reliable solution for protecting the identity and the rights of individuals as it recognizes unique and immutable features.

Basicallly, there exists two types of biometric authentication systems: verification systems and identification systems:

VERIFICATION SYSTEM: In a Verification System te input is a claimed identity and a biometric record. The system compare that biometric record with the biometric record stored in database for that identity in order to verify the claimed identity. In that kind of system only a comparison is performed. Verification is determin-ing if a person is who they say they are. It involves taking the measured characteristic and comparing it to the previously recorded data for that person.

IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM: In an Identification System the input is just a biometric record. The system must search a (probably large) database looking for the biometric data most similar with an input query biometric data and must decide if both of them belong to the same person.I n that kind of system many comparisons are performed. This involves establishing a person's identity based only on biometric measurements.

One particular case of identification system is the Watch List System. In that kind of system there exists a list of "wanted" persons and given an input biometric record the system must decide if that record match with some iof the individuals on the watch list .

BIOMETRICS SYSTEM MODEL

Different biometric systems share a common general flow . That common model is defined as a set of modules or components: data collection, transmission, Signal processing, storage, matching score and decision.

DATA COLLECTION

The first step for the use of a biometric system is the capture and acquisition of biometric data from a biometric sensor hardware. Usually, it is afected by human factors, environmental conditions and quality of sensor used. The final result of enrollment process is an image or signal captured directly from individuals. The Failure to Enroll Rate measures the lack of success of enrollment process.

SIGNAL PROCESSING

Signal processing methods and algorithms are applied to the enrolled data in order to detect and extract their main features. Ideallly, the extracted biometrical features must describe uniquely an individual. The final result of signal processing component is the template creation. A template is a structure for biometric features representation. The algorithms used for extraction are proprietary and are the core intellectual property of biometrics vendors.

TRANSMISSION

In some biometric systems data collection and processing occurs at different places. In those cases biometric data must be transmitted from data collection to the signal processing components. Generally, that transmission process involves a great amount of data and compression techniques are apllied.

STORAGE(TEMPLATE CREATION)

Biometric data is never stored on database in its original format, i.e. digital image. The signal processing methods detect features on enrolled data and organize them as a so called characteristic vector. A characteristic vector is a description of the main features detected for Signal Processing component and must be small and easy to process. There exists proposals of standards format of templates for fingerprint based on minutiae point found in fingerprint images.

DECISION(MATCHING)

The final component of a biometric system is the decision or matching component. Decision component compares a query biometric template with the stored template of claimed person and assign them a similarity score. That score is used for make decisions about the matching or not of the templates. In Verification Systems if the similarity score is greater than a fixed threshold the system decides that templates belong to the same person.

AUTHENTICATION METHODS

Traditionally, authentication methods are divided into three main groups: Tokens (What You Have)

The user possesses a physical and portable device which contains the users identity. Examples of such devices include bankcards, driver's licenses, passports, etc.

Passwords (What You Know)These methods are based on a user's knowledge characterized by its secrecy. Examples include passwords, PINs, etc.

Biometrics (What You Are) The user submits to the system his physical and/or behavioral characteristics. As a result, the individual is either accepted as a valid user or is rejected.

HOW TO EVALUATE BIOMETRIC SYSTEM

The main aspect to evaluate a biometric system is its accuracy. From the user’s point of view, an error of accuracy occurs when the system fails to authenticate the identity of a registered person or when

the system erroneously authenticates the identity of an intruder.There are several factors that can provoke accuracy errors. They are discussed as follows.

HUMAN FACTORS

The first step of every use of a biometric system is the capture of biometrical records. Capture of biometric information always needs human participation on different degrees. For fingerprint capture, fingers must be in contact with sensor surface; on iris image capture the eyes must look at a fixed point of a digital camera. Even for face image capture, probably the less human-invasive biometric, a good capture imposes some positioning requirements of the face. As consequence, human behavior at the moment of biometric capture is a critical issue for the proceeding steps and the accuracy of recognition.

DEVICE FACTORS

Biometric sensors also can be sources of errors even when humans adopt adequate capture procedures. Environmental conditions and technological properties of devices affect the quality of the captured biometric records. Each biometric capture technology has advantages and drawbacks. For example:

Optical fingerprint devices produce average quality images but they are very sensitive to light conditions on external and internal environments. It has effects on the quality of captured images and processing algorithms must consider a high variation on quality. As result of its rolled capture system, thermal fingerprint devices produce harder to process enlarged images. Nevertheless, those devices are insensitive to environmental conditions and algorithm must be designed for a low variation on quality.

ALGORITHM FACTORS

A typical biometrical algorithm has three components:

Enrolling component: That component analyzes the biometrical record, extracts its singular features and packs them in a compact structure called biometrical template. Evaluation component: That component assigns a similarity score to the comparison between two templates. The first compared record is called query template and the second one candidate template. When both of the compared records belong to the same person it is called a genuine comparison. On the contrary it is called an impostor comparison.

Decision making component: That component uses the score assigned by the evaluation component to make a decision about the comparison between two templates.

According to the decision made there are two types of biometric algorithms:

Matching algorithm: It must decide if the comparison between candidate and query templates is a genuine or impostor comparison. Ranking algorithm: It must decide, for a prefixed integer value n and a stored database of candidates templates, which the set of n templates most similar to the query template.

The main source of accuracy error in a biometric system is the fail of algorithm to decide correctly about matching or ranking decision .

TYPES OF ERRORS IN BIOMETRICS

There are several types of biometrical system errors as results of human, device and algorithmic factors:

Failure to capture error (FCE): The inability of the input device to capture the biometric information. That is a device and human dependent error. Failure to enroll error (FEE): The inability of the system to extract the template information after a successful device capture. That is an algorithm error associated to the step of processing and extraction of templates from the input device. It is strongly dependent on device and human factors at the moment of biometric capture. False Match Error (FME): The failure of the algorithm when it classifies as genuine an actual impostor comparison between two templates. It is an error associated to the step of templates matching of a biometric algorithm and depends of the step of template extraction. It is also strongly dependent on device and human factors at the moment of biometric capture. False Non Match Error (FNME): The failure of the algorithm when it classifies as impostor an actual genuine comparison between two templates. It is an error associated to the step of templates matching of a biometric algorithm and depends of the step of template extraction. It is also strongly dependent on device and human factors at the moment of biometric capture. Ranking Error (RE): This is an error dependent of a prefixed integer value n. Describes the failure of the algorithm when, given a genuine comparison between a query and candidate templates classify it out of the n-most similar among a stored template database.

ITS APPLICATIONS

With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technology, it is nec-essary to restrict access to sensitive/personal data. By replacing PINs, biometric techniques can potentially prevent unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of ATMs, cellular phones, smart cards, desktop PCs, work-stations, and computer networks. PINs and passwords may be forgotten, and token-based methods of iden-tification like passports and driver's licenses may be forged, stolen, or lost. Thus biometric systems of iden-tification are enjoying a renewed interest.

There are many views concerning potential biometric applications, some popular examples being:

FORENSIC

The use of biometric in the law enforcement and forensic is more known and from long date, it is used mainly for identification of criminals. In particular, the AFIS (automatic fingerprint identification system) has been used for this purpose. Lately the facial-scan technology (mug shots) is being also used for identification of suspects. Another possible application is the verification of persons of home arrest, a voice-scan is an attractive solution for this problem. The typical application are:

Identification of criminals Surveillance Corrections Probation and home arrest

GOVERNMENT

There are many application of the biometry in the government sector. An AFIS is the primary system used for locating duplicates enrolls in benefits systems, electronic voting for local or national elections, driver's license emission, etc. The typical application are:

National Identification Voter ID and Driver's Benefits Distribution (social service) Employee Military programs

COMMERCIAL

Banking and financial services represent enormous growth areas for biometric technology, with many deployments currently functioning and pilot project announced frequently. Some applications in this sector are:

Account

ATMs Expanded Service Kiosks Online banking Telephony transaction PC/Network access Physical access E-commerce Time and attendance monitoring

HEALTH CARE

The applications in this sector includes the use of biometrics to identify or verify the identity of individuals interacting with a health-care entity or acting in the capacity of health-care employee or professional. The main aim of biometrics is to prevent fraud, protect the patient information and control the sell of pharmaceutical products. Some typical application are:

PC/Network Access Access to personal Patient

TRAVEL AND IMMIGRATION

The application in this sector includes the use of biometrics to identify or verify the identity of individual interacting during the course of travel, with a travel or immigration entity or acting in the capacity of travel or immigration employee. Typical application are:

Air travel Border crossing Employee access Passports

Biometrics applications can also be classified in the following groups.

MEDICAL BIOMETRICS

This is related to the use of biometrics in medical applications, such as medical diagnoses. The idea is to extract biometrics pattern and associate it to possible diseases. This type of application is still new, but it has a great potentiality. According to the researcher in this area, the biometry could be also applied for personal character identification.

CONVENIENCE

The motivation of using biometric concerns the convenience in the use of some services where authentication are needed. For example, biometrics dispenses us of the necessity of remembering the passwords and PINs or carrying IDs, Tokens, or any other document to prove our identity.

SECURITY

The biometric was always concerned with the security. its main interest is to reduce frauds and control the access to restricted areas.

ADVANTAGES: WHY OPT FOR BIOMETRICS TECHNOLOGY

Biometrics allows you to replace "what you have" and "what you know" security adages with the all important "who you are" byword, hence contributing one of the most substial benefits to the secu-rity area. Increase security - Provide a convenient and low-cost additional tier of security.Reduce fraud by employing hard-to-forge technologies and materials. Eliminate problems caused by lost IDs or forgotten passwords by using physiological attributes. Reduce password administration costs.

Replace hard-to-remember passwords which may be shared or observed. Integrate a wide range of biometric solutions and technologies, customer applications and databases into a robust and scalable control solution for facility and network access Make it possible, automatically, to know WHO did WHAT, WHERE and WHEN! Offer significant cost savings or increasing ROI in areas such as Loss Prevention or Time & Attendance. Unequivocally link an individual to a transaction or event.

Biometrics technologies measure a particular set of a person's vital statistics in order to de-termine identity. In the most contemporary computer science applications, the term "life measurement" adapts a slightly different role.

One advantage of passwords over biometrics is that they can be re-issued. If a token or a password is lost or stolen, it can be cancelled and replaced by a newer version. This is not naturally avail-able in biometrics. If someone’s face is compromised from a database, they cannot cancel or reissue it. Can-celable biometrics is a way in which to incorporate protection and the replacement features into biomet-rics.

Multi-modal biometrics combines different biometric applications. By integrating two or more biometric methodologies, these types of solutions meet the highest and most stringent security re-quirements. The advantages of biometrics are the person is the key so you need never remember your card or key again. Each body part is unique and Biometrics uses your unique identity to enable a purchase acti -vate something or unlock something. Biometrics encompasses Voice, Vein, Eye, Fingerprint, Facial recogni -tion and more.

DRAWBACKS OF BIOMETRICS

Biometric security is no longer a novel concept and is finding application everywhere. Be it the residential or the commercial arena, biometric security devices are in use. However there are certain disadvantages of biometric security, in comparison to the conventional security devices. Each biometric se-curity device works on a particular characteristic. While one device may ask for your fingerprints to permit access, other may monitor your hand measurements.

Most biometric security devices would consider your fingerprints as a password. This can have certain disadvantages. The first disadvantage is that the fingerprints of a person keep on changing from time to time. This can lead to the security devise having problem in identifying your fingerprint. The age and occupation of a person can also cause sensors difficulty in capturing a complete and accurate fin -gerprint image.

Other than that there are health concerns too involved in such biometric security. These se-curity devices incorporate sensors, which may be touched by several individuals. Touching these sensors again and again can lead to health problems. Other disadvantages of fingerprints based security include public perceptions and privacy concerns of criminal implications.

If your biometric security device uses your hand you may have to deal with some disadvan-tages. First of all the use of such biometric security requires some training. The biggest disadvantage of such biometric security is that it is not sufficiently distinctive over large databases.

It is found that with age, the voice of a person differs. Also when the person has flu or throat infection the voice changes or if there are too much noise in the environment this method may not authen-ticate correctly. Therefore this method of verification is not workable all the time.

Face recognition is not perfect and struggles to perform under certain conditions. Other con-ditions where face recognition does not work well include poor lighting, sunglasses, long hair, or other ob-jects partially covering the subject’s face, and low resolution images.

Another serious disadvantage is that many systems are less effective if facial expressions vary. Even a big smile can render in the system less effective. For instance: Canada now allows only neutral facial expressions in passport photos.

CONCLUSION

The increased need of privacy and security in our daily life has given birth to this new area of science. These devices are here and are present around us everywhere in the society and are here to stay for a long time to come. Indeed, it will be interesting to watch the future impact that they will have on our day-to-day lives. Government will continue to be a hot market for biometric security, but experts see huge potential in the financial community and the medical industry. The security issues that haunt corporate IT

and ecommerce make them obvious markets for biometric too.

Current electronic security systems, which rely primarily on personal identification to ensure that a client is an authorized user of a system, have a common vulnerability: the verification can be dupli-cated which can be nearly eliminated using biometrics. Biometrics can be used by various organizations to increase security levels and protect their data and patents. Biometrics although interdisciplinary, it is not the eventual choice of the masses due to its high cost and legal considerations like privacy issues. The merit of biometrics is proven by endeavors of the G8 countries to apply it to prevent forgery of passports and other travel documents as part of their fight against terrorism. Without doubt the age of biometrics is here and the technology will directly affect everyone over the next few years.

The level of interest the government is giving to biometrics today helps the importance it foresees the role this technology will pay in the future. Biometrics is a very interesting and exciting field that has be growing exponentially in recent years. The wide variety of physically unique traits our bodies give us will soon allow us to live in a very secure password-less world.

REFERENCES

BOOKS J.G.Daugman. High confidence visual recognition of persons by a test of statistical impedance. IEEE

Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 15(11): 1148-1161, November 1993. Ruud M. Bolle, Jonathan H. Connell, Sharath Pankanti, Nalini K. Ratha, Andrew W. Senior, Guide To

Biometrics, 2003.WEBSITES

www.howstuffworks.com www.google.com www.wikipedia.com