What is biometrics?

Biometrics are automated methods of recognizing a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Biometrics is thus possible to:

• identify an unknown person according to its unique and inimitable characters. This procedure is commonly used in criminology (identification of discovered corpses by photographs, fingerprints, DNA analysis etc.)
• verify an individual´s claimed identity by comparing a submitted sample to one or more previously enrolled templates, ID card, passport etc.

Physiological characteristics include fingerprint, face, hand geometry, iris, retinal, vein. Physiological characteristics are signature, voice etc. Biometric system based on physiological characteristics of the individual is generally more reliable (that´s why it is used more) as a system based on customary characteristics. Modern biometric technologies enables the identification and verification carry out quickly and conveniently anywhere and anytime. Individual biometric characteristics is possible to "convert" into electronic form and retained in the database or in chip that can be inserted into the ID card or passport.

The advantage of biometric identification of person is:

• universality - biometric characteristics have all people
• uniqueness - biometrics is element that distinguishes one person safely from all other
• stability - each person retains this element of a lifetime
• resistance against counterfeiting – biometric characteristics of a person can not be transferred to another person as in the case of ID card, password or PIN
• convenience - the identification is not required to carry any RFID card, remember PIN etc.

Future of biometrics

The future is very promising for biometrics. Biometric-based authentication applications include access control systems, time & attendance systems, workstation, network, and domain access, application logon, data protection, remote access to resources, transaction and web security and most recently in the field of biometric signatures. This technology is no longer present as a "science fiction". For many years biometrics is used in many small to large businesses, offices and industrial plants. Investment in the purchase of biometric readers has significantly decreased and the use of biometrics has become commonplace.

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