BIOMETRICS

Jyothi Rani.V.S
MSc. Computer Networks and
Security.
Middlesex University.London
 Contents
What is Biometrics.
History of Biometrics.
Classification of Biometrics : Advantages
and disadvantages.
Comparison of Biometric systems.
Some Famous Biometric Devices.
Future of Biometrics.
References.
 What is Biometric
 A biometric is a measurement of a biological
characteristic such as fingerprint, iris pattern, retina image, face or
hand geometry; or a behavioural characteristic such as voice, gait or
signature.
 Biometric technology uses these characteristics to identify individuals
automatically.
 Ideally the characteristic should be universally present, unique to the
individual, stable over time and easily measurable.
 What is it used for?
 Small-scale security of buildings and IT systems and for use in
access/I.D. cards.
 Potential large-scale applications at a national level, these include the
Criminal Justice System, immigration and asylum, and port and border
security.
 The collection of fingerprints by the police and immigration service
has long been regulated by law.
 History of Biometrics
 In the 14th century, the Chinese were reportedly using fingerprint-like
methods as a form of identifying their children (NCSC, National child
science congress, fingerprint).
 During the late 19th century, police authorities throughout the world
used a method of bodily measurements called Bertillonage.
 This method was time consuming, and in 1903 when two Fort
Leavenworth prisoner’s measurements produced identical results
within a given tolerance, Bertillonage lost its popularity and usefulness
to fingerprinting.
 Biometric history in the recent past (three decades) has seen drastic
advancements and the technology has moved from a single method
(fingerprinting) to more than ten prudent methods.
 Classification of Biometrics
Physical Biometrics: 
* Bertillonage - measuring body lengths (no longer used) 
* Fingerprint - analyzing fingertip patterns .
* Facial Recognition - measuring facial characteristics. 
* Hand Geometry - measuring the shape of the hand. 
* Iris Scan - analyzing features of colored ring of the eye .
* Retinal Scan - analyzing blood vessels in the eye. 
* Vascular Patterns - analyzing vein patterns .
* DNA - analyzing genetic makeup.
 Behavioural Biometrics Solutions: 

* Speaker Recognition - analyzing vocal behaviour. 

* Signature - analyzing signature dynamics.
* Keystroke - measuring the time spacing of typed words .

 Other Biometric Solutions: 

* Smart Cards - combining biometrics with identification cards.

 Bertillonage Biometrics:
An individual is required to go through a 20-60 minute measuring
exam where they would have various body measurements taken,
ideally that includes the height, length, and breadth of the head,
the length of different fingers, the length of forearms, etc.
The results obtained were then recorded and/or compared to a
record database. Though all this was done by hand, the record
filing and checking system was quite fast for its time.
The system was a success, identifying hundreds of repeat
offenders, and was used world-wide until 1903, when two identical
(within the tolerances) measurements were obtained for two
different persons at the Fort Leavenworth prison. The prison
switched to finger printing the following day and the rest of the
world soon followed, abandoning bertillonage forever. 
 Fingerprint Biometric:
•Fingerprinting basically means to take an image
(either using ink or a digital scan) of an
individual's fingertips and then store or records
its characteristics. 
•The whorls, arches, and loops are what make up
this characteristics of a fingertip. These are
recorded along with the patterns of ridges,
furrows, and minutiae. This information may
then be processed or stored as an image or as an
encoded computer algorithm to be compared
with other fingerprint records. 
Biometrics Fingerprint Technology - Process

1.Customer places finger on pressure sensitive pad.

2.Computer digitizes the pattern using a special algorithm.

3. And transforms it into a 1024 character record.

4. The record is compared to a central database. If there is no match, there will

not be any transaction.
 Use of Fingerprint biometric:
 The technology was used in criminal investigations for over 100 years.
 Fingerprint scanning secure entry devices for building door locks and
computer network access.
 Banks and financial organisations have begun using fingerprint readers
for authorization at ATMs .
 Grocery stores are experimenting with a fingerprint scan checkout that
automatically recognizes and bills a registered user's credit card or debit
account.
 Advantages:
• Very high accuracy.
• Is the most economical biometric PC user authentication technique.
• it is one of the most developed biometrics
• Easy to use.
• Small storage space required for the biometric template, reducing the
size of the database memory required
• It is standardized.

Disadvantages:
• It can make mistakes with the dryness or dirty of the finger’s skin, as
well as with the age (is not appropriate with children, because the size
of their fingerprint changes quickly)
• For some people it is very intrusive, because is still related to criminal
identification.
 Biometric Facial Recognition
•Biometric Facial recognition analyzes the characteristics
of an individual's face images captured through a digital
video camera.
•It records the overall facial structure, including distances
between eyes, nose, mouth, and jaw edges. These
measurements are stored in a database and used as a
comparison when a user stands before the camera. 

•Biometric Facial Recognition - The Process: 

User faces the camera, standing about two feet from it.
The system will locate the user's face and perform
matches against the claimed identity on the facial
database.
 Use of biometric facial recognition systems:
• It is a potential tool for averting terrorist crimes, law
enforcement areas.
• Software's have also been developed for computer networks
and automated bank tellers that use facial biometrics for
user verification purposes. 
Advantages
 Non intrusive.
 Cheap technology.
Disadvantages:
 2D recognition is affected by changes in lighting, the person’s hair, the
age, and if the person wear glasses.
 Requires camera equipment for user identification; thus, it is not likely to
become popular until most PCs include cameras as standard equipment.
 Hand Scanning
•Hand scanning involves the measurement and analysis of the
shape of one's hand.
•It requires special hardware to use, it can be easily integrated into
other devices or systems. 

•Biometric Hand Scanning-The Process

•The user places the palm of his hand on a metal surface which
has guidance pegs on it.
•The hand is then properly aligned by the pegs so the device can
read the hand attributes.
• The device then checks its database for verification of the users.
•The process usually takes less than 5 seconds. 
•It does not have any way to detect whether a hand is living or
not and therefore can be fooled by a fake hand if pressure is
applied to the plate correctly
 Use of biometric hand scanners systems: 
Biometric hand scanning systems are employed at over 8,000 locations
including the Colombian legislatures, San Francisco International
Airport, day care centres, welfare agencies, hospitals, and immigration
facilities for the INSPASS frequent international traveller system. 
Advantages:
 It is very easy for users to work the system - requiring nothing more than placing
one's hand on the device.
 It has no public attitude problems as it is associated most commonly with
authorized access. 
 The amount of data required to uniquely identify a user in a system is the
smallest by far, allowing it to be used with Smartcards easily.
Disadvantages:
 Biometric hand readers, including it's proprietary hardware cost and required
size.
 Injuries to hands can cause difficulty in using the reader effectively, the lack of
accuracy in general requires that it be used for verification alone.
 Very expensive.
 Biometric Iris Scanning
Iris scanning analyzes the features that exist in the
coloured tissues surrounding the pupil which has more
than 200 points that can be used for comparison, including
rings, furrows and freckles.

Biometric Iris Scanning - The Process:

•The person aligns himself so that he is able to see his own eye's
reflection in the iris scanning device.
•The user may be able to do this from up to 2 feet away or may
need to be as close as a couple of inches depending on the device.
•To prevent a fake eye from being used to fool the iris scanning
systems, iris scanners may vary the light shone into the eye and
watch for pupil dilation also.
• The uniqueness of eyes, even between the left and right eye of the same
person, makes iris scanning very powerful for identification purposes.
• Advantages:
 Very high accuracy.
 Verification time is generally less than 5 seconds.
 The eye from a dead person would deteriorate too fast to be useful, so
no extra precautions have to been taken with retinal scans to be sure
the user is a living human being.
• Disadvantages:
 Intrusive.
 A lot of memory for the data to be stored.
 Very expensive
 Retinal Biometrics
•Retinal biometrics involves the scanning of retina and analysing the
layer of blood vessels at the back of the eye.
• Retinal scanning involves using a low-intensity light source and an
optical coupler and can read the patterns at a great level of accuracy.

Retinal Biometrics - The Process: 

The user looks through a small opening in the retinal biometrics device at a small
green light. The user must keep their head still and eye focused on the light for
several seconds during which time the device will verify his identity. This process
takes about 10 to 15 seconds total. 

Use of retinal biometrics systems: 

 Retina scan is used almost exclusively in high-end security applications. It is used

for controlling access to areas or rooms in military installations, power plants, and
the like that are considered high risk security areas. 
 Vascular Patterns Biometrics:
Vascular pattern biometrics technology involves measuring the
characteristics related to the veins in a person's hand or face.
The thickness and location of these veins are believed to be
unique enough to an individual to be used to verify a person's
identity.
Vascular Patterns Biometrics - The Process: 
The most common form of vascular patterns readers are hand-
based, requiring the user to place their hand on a curved
reader that takes an infrared scan.
This scan creates a picture that can then be compared to a
database to verify the user's stated identity. 
Use of vascular patterns biometrics systems:
vascular patterns 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. Currently it is still building acceptance. 
 Voice Recognition Biometrics :

•Voice biometrics works by digitizing a profile of a person's

speech to produce a stored model voice print, or template.
•Biometric technology reduces each spoken word to
segments composed of several dominant frequencies called
formants.
•Each segment has several tones that can be captured in a
digital format. The tones collectively identify the speaker's
unique voice print.
•Voice prints are stored in databases in a manner similar to
the storing of fingerprints or other biometric data.
 Advantages:
Non intrusive. High social acceptability.
Verification time is about five seconds.
Cheap technology.
Disadvantages:
A person’s voice can be easily recorded and used for
unauthorised PC or network.
Low accuracy.
An illness such as a cold can change a person’s voice,
making absolute identification difficult or impossible
 DNA Matching
 DNA Matching involves proving that a suspect's DNA matches a sample left at the
scene of a crime. This type of biometrics technology requires two things: 
1. Creating a DNA profile using basic molecular biology protocols .
2. Crunching numbers and applying the principles of population genetics to prove
a match mathematically .

DNA : Your Own Personal Barcode.

•Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes containing the DNA
blueprint that encodes all the materials needed to make up
your body as well as the instructions for how to run it.
•One member of each chromosomal pair comes from your
mother, and the other is contributed by your father. 
•Every cell in your body contains a copy of this DNA. While the
majority of DNA doesn't differ from human to human, some 3
million base pairs of DNA (about 0.10 percent of your entire
genome) vary from person to person. 
The key to DNA matching evidence lies in comparing the
DNA left at the scene of a crime with a suspect's DNA in these
chromosomal regions that do differ.

Weaknesses:
Intrusive: a physical sample must be taken, while other biometric
systems only use an image or a recording
DNA matching is not done in real-time.
Applications of DNA biometrics:

DNA evidence has been used in courts of law since 1985 to

prove guilt or innocence. It is also used for paternity testing,
identification of missing or dead people.
Advantages:
1. Very high accuracy.
2. It impossible that the system made mistakes.
3. It is standardized.

Disadvantages:
1.DNA matching is not done in real-time
2.Intrusive: a physical sample must be taken, while
other biometric systems only use an image or a
recording
3.Very expensive
Comparison of the biometric systems
 Some Famous Biometric Devices:
• Employee time clocks are most famous devices, based upon
biometric technology used for maintaining the employee
attendance.
• Fingerprint scanners are the devices, which employ
biometric technology to store and match fingerprints of
different individuals entering an organization.
• Biometric door locks in houses are also immensely popular
to prevent housebreaks and robberies.
• Biometric smart card readers and ATM card readers are
also being used at different terminals.
 Future of Biometrics
 The future of biometrics holds great promise for law enforcement
applications, as well for private industry uses. 
 By measuring facial geometry, surveillance systems can identify
suspects against characteristics stored in the security system's database.
 Biometrics' future will include e-commerce applications for extra
security on the checkout page, and biometrics will guard against
unauthorized access to cars and cell phones.
 In the future, biometric technology will further develop 3-D infrared
facial recognition access control, real-time facial recognition passive
surveillance, and visitor management authentication systems.
 Strengthening existing biometric innovations for future growth.
 Access control facial recognition.
 Facial recognition passive surveillance.
 Alert management.
 References:
ohttp://www.biometricnewsportal.com/biometrics_benefits.asp
ohttp://www.questbiometrics.com/biometric-history.html
ohttp://www.video-surveillance-guide.com/future-of-biometrics.htm
oGuide to Biometrics By Ruud M. Bolle,Jonathan H.Conell,Sharath
Pankanti,Nalini K.Ratha,Andrew W.Senior.
THANK YOU