Biometrics
What is Biometrics?
Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioural characteristic. The word biometrics means Biological Measurements. Therefore in this way we can use computers to recognize persons.
Physiological characteristics means Fingerprints, Retinal and Iris Patterns, Hand and Finger Geometry, Facial recognition etc.
Behavioural characteristics means Voice Patterns, Signature etc.
There are different biometric solutions. Some of them are Finger Print Recognition, Iris Pattern recognition, Facial Recognition, Voice Pattern Recognition, Hand and Finger Geometry etc. In all these biometric solutions the details about the physiological/behavioural characteristics are entered into a database. When the user uses the sytem the characteristics required for the system are scanned and a template is formed. It is checked whether there exists a match for this template with any of the records already stored in the database. If a match is found, the user is allowed access. Otherwise the user is denied access.
Each biometric solution can be used in two different modes.
In Identification mode, where the biometric system identifies a person from the entire enrolled population by searching a database for a match.
In Verification mode, where the biometric system authenticates a person's claimed identity from his/her previously enrolled pattern.
Applications of Biometrics.
Improving airport security.
Strenghthening our national borders in travel documents, visas, passports etc.
In peventing ID theft.
e-banking, e-commerce and other financial transactions.
Law enforcement.
Health and Social Services.
In Network security infrastructures, etc.
In Enterprise and Government networks.
Biometrics based authentication applications include workstation, network and domain access, single sign-on, application logon, data protection, remote access to resources, transaction security and web security etc.
Advantages of using biometrics in various applications.
Only the biometric authentication is based on an intrinsic part of a human being. So unlike a password or PIN or Smart Card, it can't be forgotten, misplaced, lost or stolen. We are having our identification with ourselves and therefore there is no need to carry any card or remember passwords for our identification.
A biometric template is unique for an individual for whom it is created.
Biometrics ensures that the person trying to access your network and applications is actually a sanctioned user, and not in a posession of a stolen smartcard or someone who found, hacked or cracked password.
Disadvantages of using biometric solutions.
It is not only the intial cost that of the sensor or the matching hardware that is involved. Often the life cycle support cost can overtake the intial cost of the hardware.
Most of the biometric systems like firnger print recognition, iris recognition etc. are accurate. But someothers like facial recognition etc. are not that accurate.
Accuracy of a biometric system include
False Acceptance Rate “ Percentage of impostors accepted.
False Rejection Rate “ Percentage of authorised users rejected.
Equal-Error Rates “ When the decision threshhold is adjusted so that the false-acceptance rate equal the false-rejection rate.
Conclusion
An important point to be noted in constructing a biometric system is that it should be based upon a distiguishable triat. For eg: Law enforcement has used finger prints to identify people. There is a great deal of scientific data supporting the idea that no fingerprints are alike.
All biometric systems capture data from individuals. Once these date have been captured by the system, they can be forwarded to any location and put to many different uses which are capable of compromising on an individual's privacy.
A good biometric system is one that is of low cost, fast, accurate, and easy to use.
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Biometrics is an advanced technology for superb security and authentication .The very term "biometric it represent that "bio" means related to the biological study and "metric " means something, which is related to measurement. In network environment security is a crucial factor. Provide security to pages in the network is to difficulty. Password is not a good measurement for security. Good security mechanism is necessary on the Internet. Security in different levels applies to various documents. Security is depends how security assign to documents. Security depends on following categories.
