What are biometric systems?
Biometric systems are designed to verify the identity of a person by checking some unique biological characteristic against a database. They are used in two ways: — Authentication: checking that this person is who they say they are or what the industry calls one-to-one matching. This would be used for border controls, access to physical environments such as offices, and access to websites, bank account details etc i.e. for any situation where currently a password or document proof of identity would be the norm. — Identification: finding out who a person is by checking them against a large number of stored identities or one-to-many matching. This is used for identifying suspicious people in public spaces such as airports, shopping malls etc. Different systems use different biological traits as their basis. These include: fingerprint, DNA, voice, face shape, palm print and the pattern of the iris. All of these provide a reliability of close to 100%, though there is much industry wrangl
