subject: The Technical Criterion of the Biometric Security System [print this page] The human body offers features that can be known uniquely within a particular region, such as fingerprint, voice, eyes and face. The different vendors are developing products using these features. Their success is measured depending on a number of criteria. Each technology has strengths and weaknesses.
The most important criterion is accuracy. Accuracy levels in biometric systems include the false-acceptance rate and false-rejection rate. The false-acceptance rate is the percentage of users who do not get the rights in the system, but they get the access. Meanwhile, the false-rejection rate is the percentage of users who have the power in the system, but their access rights are rejected.
This figure is very useful, and biometric product sellers often include the figure in the description of their products. However, they did not present complete information about it.
There is a fact that a person's physical attributes can change. Mainly, the changes can be caused by accidents or aging changes. In other words, the problems may arise because of the humidity, the mud and sweat on the user (especially if the system is a fingerprint or arm geometry), and the ways that are not consistent from the interface system, such as not getting enough time for the system to make an accurate identification.
In reality, biometric technology is used for the purposes of identification and authentication. For authentication, you need the high accuracy to ensure the limited access. In this case, you need both the retinal scanning and iris scanning. They provide high accuracy.
The first user of retinal scanning is the military and U.S. government agencies like the CIA, FBI, and NASA. Some banks in Japan also use this system in ATM machines to prevent the parties that have no right to enter their system.
In addition, the identification of the iris is used in public places such as in the airport of Schiphol, Netherlands, since 2001. Here, the iris scanning is also used as a replacement of passport.
The Technical Criterion of the Biometric Security System
