BIOMETRICS ALL BY ITSELF

Introduction

The word biometrics can be classified into bio and metrics, bio refers to the study or
science of living beings and metrics refers to the science of measuring as applied to a specific
field of study. The term biometrics refers to a measurement or identification that depends upon
an individual’s physical trait or behavior. In the modern field of science it is practically applied
at an industry or home for security and privacy concerns.

Biometrics:

Biometrics is scientific field the largely emphasize on a degree of measurement that is

used to identify a person or individual depending on their physical traits or behavior. Biometrics
relies on a wide range of fields such as information technology, artificial intelligence, biology
and hardware related field to some extent. In the field of IT biometrics refers to the technique of
analyzing biological human bodily characteristics, such as DNA, fingerprints, eye retinas and
irises, voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements, for authentication purposes.

Why should we need biometric identification system?

We need a biometric system because it helps to cut down the rate of cybercrimes and
other misusage of private and public properties. The main fact is that each and every person on
this earth is different and unique in their physical traits and behavior. So it enables a biometric
system to have wider span in the factor security and privacy concerns. It creates diversified range
of identities based on DNA, fingerprints, retina, irises and facial patterns.

Most widely used biometric identification systems:

The current and most often used biometric systems are finger prints and retina.

Finger prints:

Since every individual has difference in the texture and pattern of their finger prints.
Finger prints as classified minutia feature that further classifies into ridge ending, bifurcation,
and short ridge (or dot). Most of the systems analyze and extrapolate the necessary data from the
ridges in the finger. The types of minutia are represented below:

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Ridge ending. Bifurcation. Short Ridge (Dot).

Retina or Iris:

The method of identification is the most unique of its kind, since the eye’s texture,
amount of light reflection and moisture level varies from person to person. So it is possible to
each and every person can enrolled into this type of biometric identification database. It enables
the system to provide less false rate acceptance of its threshold as set previously. The research
lead by and patents held by Dr. John Daugman. The method in which features are extracted is
incredibly complicated but in short a specialized monochrome camera takes a picture of the eye.
Software then locates the iris, taking account of the eyelids as well as light reflection and eye
moisture. The majority of iris recognition benchmarks are implemented in Near Infrared (NIR)
imaging by emitting 750nm wavelength light source. This is done to avoid light reflections from
cornea in iris which makes the captured images very noisy. Some of the samples are as follows:

Visible Wavelength Near Infrared (NIR)

Iris Image version

Conclusions:

All types of biometric authentication or identification systems are subjected certain error
factors. The biometric systems vendor should keenly ensure that an attacker cannot pass off the
system causing threat and loss of security or privacy. Biometrics are uniquely oriented towards
individual and it offers a sophisticated strong security authentication. The biometric system

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cannot be a foolproof system and it can be compensated by the unique trait or behavior submitted
by an individual. These biometric systems should make clear balances on the part of security and
privacy.