Biometrics is the science that quantifies and analyzes an individual’s unique physical and behavioral characteristics. The technology is mainly used for identification and access control reasons and to identify individuals under surveillance. Additionally, biometric authentication is predicated on the premise that each person may be individually identified based on their intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. Biometrics is derived from the Greek words bio, meaning life, and metric, meaning to measure. Thus, biometric identity verification encompasses any technique for uniquely identifying a person based on the assessment of one or more different biological features. Biometric identifiers include fingerprints, hand and earlobe geometries, retina patterns, voiceprints, and written signatures.
Biometric authentication is gaining traction in commercial and government security systems, consumer electronics, and point-of-sale applications. Along with security, biometric verification has been driven by convenience since there are no passwords to remember or security tokens to carry. Certain biometric methods, like gait analysis, may be utilized without the person being verified being physically touched. While biometric data may be kept centrally, current biometric systems often gather biometric data locally and cryptographically hash it in order to conduct authentication or identification without direct access to the biometric data itself.
Biometric technology is not new, and its usage has expanded farther than anyone expected. As a consequence, biometrics may be considered to provide a high level of detection and security operations with many advantages over conventional methods. The advantages of biometrics are that they enable the use of an individual’s unique information for identification. Authentication, privacy or data discretion, authorization or access control, data integrity, and non-repudiation are the main benefits of biometric technology. Moreover, there is a passwordless authentication whose goal is to develop technologies and use cases that minimize and possibly eliminate the need for passwords.
To know more about biometric technology below is an infographic from LOGIN ID that shows a brief history:
