28-02-2013, 04:51 PM
BIOMETRICS: TECHNOLOGY THAT GIVES YOU A PASSWORD YOU CAN’T SHARE
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ABSTRACT:
Identity fraud in our society is reaching un-precedented levels and with increasing emphasis on the emerging automatic personal identification applications, biometrics based verification is receiving a lot of attention .This paper provides an overview of biometric technologies and discusses Biometric scan technologies such as finger-scan, facial-scan and iris-scan. It discusses how they work, their advantages and disadvantages . Fingerprinting is the most referred biometric method of identification used for 100 years and currently by the government of USA and our TTD. Advances in computer technology and communication networks have made huge fingerprint databases available for instant searches. Facial-recognition systems, one of the oldest forms of recognition, measure characteristics such as the distance between facial features or the dimensions of the features themselves. Iris recognition, a biometric, provides one of the most secure methods of authentication and identification because of the unique characteristics of the iris. Once the image of the iris has been captured using a standard camera, the authentication process, involving comparing the current subject’s iris with the stored version, is one of the most accurate with very low false acceptance and rejection rates. The technology is easy to use, non-intrusive, difficult to forge and is quite a fast system once initial enrolment has taken place.
Introduction to Biometrics:
The word “biometrics” comes from the Greek language and is derived from the words bio (life) and metric (to measure). Biometrics is the ability to automatically recognize a person using distinguishing traits such as fingerprints, face, retina or iris from the eye, voice, or hand geometry.
Need for biometrics:
The method of biometric identification is preferred over traditional methods involving passwords and PIN numbers for various reasons: The person to be identified is required to be physically present at the point-of-identification. The identification based on biometric techniques obviates the need to remember a password or carry a token or a smartcard By replacing PINs and passwords, biometric techniques are more convenient in relation to the user and can potentially prevent unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of ATMs, Time & Attendance Systems, cellular phones, smart cards, desktop PCs, Workstations, and computer networks. PINs, passwords and other methods of identification like drivers’ licenses and insurance cards, may be forgotten, stolen, or lost.
FINGER-SCANNING TECHNOLOGY:
Fingerprinting or finger-scanning technologies is the oldest and commonly used biometric sciences that utilizes distinctive features of the fingerprint to identify or verify the identity of individuals and used in a broad range of physical access and logical access applications.
FACIAL SCAN TECHNOLOGY:
Another biometric scan technology is facial recognition. This technology is considered a natural means of biometric identification since the ability to distinguish among individual appearances is possessed by humans .With facial recognition technology, a digital video camera image is used to analyze facial characteristics such as the distance between eyes, mouth or nose.
These measurements are stored in a database and used to compare with a subject standing before a camera. Facial recognition systems are usually divided into two primary groups. First there is what is referred to as the ‘controlled scene’ group whereby the subject being tested is located in a known environment with a minimal amount of scene variation. In this case, a user might face the camera, standing about two feet from it. The system locates the user's face and perform matches against the claimed identity or the facial database. It is possible that the user may need to move and reattempt the verification based on his facial position. The system usually comes to a decision in less than 5 seconds. The other group is known as the “random scene” group where the subject to be tested might appear anywhere within the camera scene. This situation might be encountered within a system attempting to identify the presence of an individual within a group or crowd.
Demonstration of a face recognition system:
This demonstration of face recognition can compare one image to another and provide scores (entitled similarity scores) for each comparison. For our demonstration face recognition system, the similarity scores range from 0.0 to 1.0, with a 1.0 score being an exact match. In the verification task, a user first makes a claim as to their identity (e.g., I am John Q. Public). The biometric system then determines if the user’s claim is correct or not. A good example is verifying a user’s identity prior to providing the user access to their account on a computer system. Figure 4 gives us a visual example, where the woman on the left makes a claim that she is the woman on the right.