If you have watched Tom Cruise’s film Minority Report and observed how the government identify the citizens using iris recognition, or probably you have been keeping an eye for CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), and notice how biometrics have helped the investigators solve the case, you would then know the impact and benefits biometrics bring to mankind.

Long before, people already have the vision of implementing the biometric technology in our daily lives, and in recent years, this has now become a reality.  As incidents of fraud, theft, life and property threats prevalently intensify, individual authentications are making transitions from passwords and keytags to biometric technologies.  Biometrics, by definition in the dictionary, means statistical study of biological data or the identification of somebody thru an electronic system.  Originated from the two Greek words --- bios means life and metros means measure, biometrics brings about a new era of personal identification and verification.      

Increasing Demand

While keytags, passwords and cards remain to be the widely applied individual identification, but one cannot eliminate the possibilities of forgotten passwords, stolen cards, and left behind keytags, and that is exactly the greatest advantage of biometric system over the card verification system.  Using the unique traits human possesses, such as fingerprint, facial, voice or signature, individual carries their “identification card” anywhere providing not only convenience but also eliminating risk of being stolen or duplicated. 

It has been clearly proven that knowledge based and token-based automatic personal identification  have provided an effective means to identify an individual’s identity, however, when it comes down to verification, there still exists a question of doubt --- Is the individual carrying the card truly the person who he claims to be?  It is impossible to determine the true identity of the cardholder unless a staff is stationed to monitor people getting in and out of the premise.  Biometrics, in this case, precisely authenticates a person’s identity, as again, there are no two individuals hold the same physiological patterns. 

In addition to the advantage biometrics carries, numerous manufacturers have pop up and devote themselves to biometric development making the devices widely available to the market.  And with the creative minds of the IT companies, solution providers and manufacturers, biometrics has leaped out of the impression of providing mere physical access control solution.  Cashless payments, e-passports, and forensic science are just some of the popular applications that implement biometrics and have produced innumerable benefits and provided substantial supports.