Biometric Authentication Technology: From the Movies to Your Desktop

Published

August 7, 2001

Author(s)

Fernando L. Podio, J S. Dunn

Abstract

Biometrics are automated methods of identifying a person or verifying the identity of a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Biometric authentication technologies such as face, finger, hand, iris, and speaker recognition are commercially available today and are already coming into wide use. Recent advances in reliability and performance and recent cost drops make these technologies attractive solutions for many computer and network access, protection of digital content and physical access control problems. Biometrics is expected to play a key role in personal authentication for large-scale enterprise network authentication environments, Point-of-Sale, in the protection of all types of digital content such as in Digital Rights Management and in Health Care applications. Utilized alone or integrated with other technologies such as smart cards, encryption keys, and digital signatures, biometrics are set to pervade nearly all aspects of the economy and our daily lives. This article describes key biometric technologies and the advantages of biometrics with respect to other authentication technologies such as passwords and PINs. The leadership role played by NIST and NSA in the Biometric Consortium, their support to industry and the different biometric standards developments that they have spearheaded and sponsored are also discussed.

Citation

Medical Records Institute Newsletter

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

biometric, biometrics, dynamic signature verification, face recognition, fingerpring recognition, hand recognition, iris recognition, standards, technologies

Citation

Podio, F. and Dunn, J. (2001), Biometric Authentication Technology: From the Movies to Your Desktop, Medical Records Institute Newsletter, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=151524 (Accessed April 25, 2024)