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Biometrics is one of the most widely used image processing applications (What is Image Processing?) because it improves everyday life by making it more comfortable and secure.
After reading this post, you will be able to answer the two following questions what is biometrics and how does a biometrics system work?
Biometrics definition
Biometrics refers in a very broad sense to the study of living beings. Currently, the term is used more and more for the recognition of individuals based on their physical characteristics (iris, face, fingerprint, etc.) or behavioral characteristics (voice, writing, typing rhythm, etc.).
Biometrics is a new means of recognizing people that replaces two old methods based on:
- Knowledge: Password,
- Possession: A badge.
Both methods have their weaknesses, for the first one, the password can be forgotten by the user or guessed by a third party. For the second, the badge can be lost or stolen. The use of biometrics for person recognition avoids these weaknesses because physical or behavioral characteristics cannot be forgotten, stolen, or lost.
For a system to be biometrically used for people recognition, its characteristics must be based on the following elements:
- Universal: the entire population can be identified using it,
- Unique: no two people can have the same characteristics,
- Permanent: invariable over time,
- Efficient: identification must be fast and accurate,
- Accepted: by users,
- Impossible to duplicate: by an impostor,
- Measurable easily and in a short time.
The Architecture of a Biometric System
In a biometric system, there are two important modules, the first one used for the learning phase and the second one for the recognition phase (i.e. inference). Optionally a third module can be added to ensure…
