Use Of Biometric Security

Biometrics is an essential part of the IT security certification course and is used for identification purpose and also for verification.Both of these can be illustrated as:

• Identification: Identification is determining who a person is.It involves trying to find a match for a person's biometric data in a database containing records of people and that characteristic.This method requires time and a large amount of processing power,especially if the database is very large.

• Verification: Verification is determining if a person is who they say they are.It involves comparing a users biometric data to the previously recorded data for that person to ensure that this is the same person.This method requires less processing power and time,and is used for access control(to buildings or data).

What is Biometrics Security?

Biometrics is a combination of two Greek words "bio" which means life and "metric" which means to measure.It is a technology used to measure and analyse a person;s unique characteristics.Its characteristics may be divided into two main classess:


1) Physiological characteristics which are related to the shape of the body.For Example- fingerprint,face recognition,DNA,hand and palm geometry,iris recognition etc.


2) Behavioural are related to the behaviour of a person. Foe example- typing rythm,gate and voice.Some researchers have coined the term behaviometrics for this class of biometrics.

Features of biometrics:

• Unique
• Cannot be shared
• Cannot be copied
• Cannot be lost