Handbook of Information Security: Threats, Vulnerabilities, Prevention, Detection, and Management, Volume 3

Biometric Basics and Biometric Authentication

James L. Wayman, San Jose State University

Introduction

Fundamental Concepts

A Short History

System Description

Overview

Data Collection

Transmission

Signal Processing

Decision

Storage

Performance Testing

Types of Technical Tests

The National Physical Lab Tests

Biometrics and Information Security

Example Applications

Biometrics and Privacy

Intrinsic (or Physical) Privacy

Informational Privacy

Suggested Rules for Secure Use of Biometrics

Conclusions

Glossary

Cross References

References

INTRODUCTION

Biometric authentication is the automatic recognition of individual persons based on distinguishing biological (usually anatomical) and behavioral traits. The field is a subset of the broader field of human identification science. Example technologies include, among others, fingerprinting, face recognition, hand geometry, speaker recognition, and iris recognition. At the current level of technology, DNA analysis is a laboratory technique not fully automated and requiring human processing, so it not considered biometric authentication under this definition. Some techniques (such as iris recognition) are more biologically based, some (such as signature recognition) are more behaviorally based, but all techniques are influenced by both behavioral and biological elements.

Biometric authentication is frequently referred to as simply biometrics, although this latter word has historically been associated with the statistical analysis of general biological ...