Page 82 - DCAP309_INFORMATION_SECURITY_AND_PRIVACY

Information Security and Privacy

Notes 6.3 Biometric Devices

Biometric devices authenticate users to access control systems through some sort of personal
identifier such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, iris scan, retina scan, facial scan, or signature dynamics.
The nice thing about using biometrics is that end-users do not lose or misplace their personal
identifier. It’s hard to leave your fingers at home. However, biometrics have not caught on as
fast as originally anticipated due to the false positives and false negatives that are common
when using biometric technologies.

Biometric authentication systems employ unique physical characteristics (or attributes) of an
individual person in order to authenticate the person’s identity. Physical attributes employed in
biometric authentication systems include fingerprints, hand geometry, hand -written signatures,
retina patterns and voice patterns. Biometric authentication systems based upon these physical
attributes have been developed for computer login applications.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blank:
7. ......................... devices authenticate users to access control systems through some sort of
personal identifier such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, iris scan, retina scan, facial scan, or
signature dynamics.

6.4 Biometric Techniques

The various biometrics techniques are discussed below:

6.4.1 Face Recognition

The biometric system can robotically identify a person by the face. This technology functions by
analyzing particular traits in the face such as - the distance between the eyes, width of the nose,
position of cheekbones, jaw line, chin ,unique shape, pattern etc. These systems include
dimensions of the eyes, nose, mouth, and other facial features for identification. To rise accuracy
these systems also may measure mouth and lip movement. Face recognition captures traits of a
face either from video or still image and converts unique traits of a face into a set of numbers.
These data gathered from the face are mixtured in a single unit that uniquely recognizes identifies
each person. Sometime the traits of the face are examined like the ongoing modifications in the
face while smiling or crying or reacting to dissimilar situation, etc. The whole face of the person
is taken into consideration or the other part of the face is taken into consideration for the
recognition of a person. It is very complicated technology. The data capture by means of video
or thermal imaging. The user identity is assured by looking at the screen. The primary advantage
to using facial recognition as a biometric authenticator is that people are adapted to presenting
their faces for identification and rather than ID card or photo identity card this method will be
beneficial in recognizing a person.

!
Caution As the person faces alters by the age or person goes for plastic surgery, in this case
the facial recognition algorithm should gauge the relative position of ears, noses, eyes
and other facial traits.

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