ARTICLE

Why Use Biometrics-Based Personal Identification?

Biometrics-based personal identification attempts to answer the questions "Who are you?" and "Are you who you claim to be?" Personal identification, regardless of method, is ubiquitous in our daily lives. For example, we often have to prove our identity to gain access to a bank account, to enter a protected site, to draw cash from an ATM, to log in to a computer, to claim welfare benefits, to cross national borders, and so on.

Conventionally, we identify ourselves and gain access by physically carrying passports, keys, badges, tokens, and access cards or by remembering passwords, secret codes, and personal identification numbers (PINs). Unfortunately, passports, keys, badges, tokens, and access cards can be lost, duplicated, stolen, or forgotten; and passwords, secret codes, and PINs can easily be forgotten, compromised, shared, or observed. Such loopholes or deficiencies of conventional personal identification techniques have caused major problems to all concerned. For example, hackers often disrupt computer networks; credit card fraud is estimated at $2 billion per year worldwide; and in the USA, welfare fraud (by double dippers) is believed to be in excess of $4 billion a year. Robust, reliable, and foolproof personal identification solutions must be sought to address the deficiencies of conventional techniques.

Right at the frontier of such solutions is biometrics-based personal identification. What are biometrics? Biometrics are personal physical or biological measurements about an individual. Some frequently used measurements are height, weight, hair color, eye color, and skin color of an individual. As one may easily observe . . . [Full Text of this Article]