Biometric Technology	Back to Homepage
Extract From BIOMETRICS- THE STATE OF THE ART. By Rebecca Dornbush The e-world has wrought amazing changes in the way we operate in our day-to-day lives. Among the most compelling is the advent and growth of e-commerce, both personal and business-to-business (B2B). Today consumers can buy everything on-line, from books and music to groceries and pharmaceuticals. With the growth in consumer and B2B e-commerce, and the addition of Internet and network-based operations for financial, insurance, medical, and other traditionally confidentiality-protected services, the need for better security grows daily. Efforts are under way everywhere, by governments and business alike, to improve Internet security and privacy. Biometrics are technologies that automatically authenticate, identify, or verify an individual based on physiological or behavioural characteristics. This process is accomplished by using computer technology in a non-invasive way to match patterns of live individuals in real time against enrolled records. Examples include products that recognize faces, hands, fingers, signatures, irises or irides, voices, and fingerprints. Biometrics are most commonly used to enhance computer network security, protect financial transactions, safeguard international borders, control access to secured work sites, verify time and attendance, and prevent benefits fraud. Biometrics work well as stand-alone safeguards in many applications and complement other means of security in other applications. To verify e-commerce transactions, protect network security, and authenticate online access, biometric technologies are particularly well suited to work in conjunction with other technologies to create a multi-layered security infrastructure. Biometrics in Secured Personal Internet Transactions Increasingly, the Internet is being used to conduct highly confidential personal transactions. People worldwide are filling prescriptions, consulting doctors, conducting bank transfers, paying bills, and managing stock portfolios on the Internet. A high degree of confidence in the security, privacy, and confidentiality of these transactions is an indispensable prerequisite to steady growth in personal Internet transactions. Digital certificates provide a simple method of verifying particular personal computers, but not particular persons, as the origin of electronic transactions. Moreover, digital certificates in most cases rely upon passwords for security. Passwords are easily hacked, or simply stolen from people who tape their passwords to the bottom of a keyboard or mouse pad. Biometric identifiers, by contrast, cannot be misplaced or forgotten. When used in conjunction with digital certificates, biometric identifiers reduce administrative hassles and headaches associated with passwords, eliminate weak security links, and do so at low cost with technical ease: a small scanner can verify a fingerprint, a standard microphone can verify a voice, and a small camera can verify faces or irises. Biometrics also helps to secure privacy. Here is what IBIA had to say in comments on proposed medical privacy regulations published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: "Most biometric technologies have been designed to protect personal privacy by erecting a barrier between personal data and unauthorized access. The electronic templates used to perform the biometric verification process employ encryption and sophisticated algorithms to secure records and protect them from disclosure. Stated another way, biometrics can be thought of as a very secure key that can be used by only one person. Unless the proper bearer unlocks the biometric gate, no one can gain access to that person's information. Biometric tools therefore can both enhance personal privacy and ensure system security when absolute confirmation of identity is required." Biometrics in Multi-Layered Network Security Infrastructures B2B and other complex network transactions require the same high degree of security and protection against fraud as do personal transactions on the Internet, but the scale and complexity of networks multiply the challenge exponentially. The information to be protected can be confidential business information, pricing, or large databases of personal information about employees or customers. The highest degree of security will be found in a system that incorporates biometrics and therefore positively verifies persons themselves who originate transactions and communications. The use of biometrics for this purpose has other positive benefits: it insures convenience and helps protect privacy. Biometrics are unique in their ability to provide protection of this breadth.
Back to Technology	Back to top