Archive for the 'Infobits' Category

Associated Content has an interesting article on the history of biometrics. Coverage of more recent updates is only briefly touched on, while some more interesting tidbits from years gone by are dusted off and shared.

“Identification of a person using their physical traits has been around for centuries. Even before the advent of photography, a good sketch artist could make a likeness of one’s features, usually if they were a criminal, and send it to others who could then use it to identify the criminal who had migrated to a different town.

Identification in the West relied heavily on “photographic memory” for many years before Alphonse Bertillon, a French police desk clerk and anthropologist, developed an anthropometric system (system of measuring human physical traits such as strength, size, reach, and mobility) of identification in 1881. The first precise scientific system widely used to identify criminals, the anthropometric system turned biometrics into a field of study.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Biometrics is essentially the statistical study of biological phenomena.  However, biometrics can be more closely defined as the measurement of physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, DNA, or retinal patterns, for use in verifying the identity of individuals.  This definition is the one we will focus on at Biometrics.co.uk.  Applications of biometric technology will be explained and reported on, as well as breaking news in this dynamic field of research.  We also offer a message board, where our visitors can discuss issues pertaining to biometrics, including applications of the technology and any moral/ethical standpoints you wish to express.

The main application of biometrics is the identification and verification of individuals.  It may be done by a variety of methods, the most popular of which are fingerprinting, iris/retinal scans and facial recognition scans.

In the UK, biometric identity cards will become widely available in 2008, following the government’s victory in the House of Commons in February 2006.  The initial idea was for the ID cards to be circulated in 2007, however the General Election in 2005 delayed the enabling legislation.  Home Office minister Andy Burnham revealed that over £32m has already been spent on the scheme, including over 18 months’ pre-procurement work by PA Consulting.  Once the bill becomes law, the procurement will start and the creation of a new agency to develop and administer the scheme will go ahead.  The government’s 3 main aims for the ID card are to cut identity theft, improve security and increase access to services.  ‘The national identity register could be the missing link in egovernment,’ Burnham added. ‘How can you provide public services when you can’t be sure a person is who they say they are?’

The government plans for citizens to apply for ID cards on their own initiative, with an estimated cost in the region of £30.  It is expected that few members of the public will actually purchase an ID card in it’s voluntary period, as they are unlikely to feel any of the benefits of the card, such as guarenteed access to public services; this would only come into play when ID cards become manditory.  The link between ID cards and passports has not yet been decided - but if they are tied together, then the UK’s 48 million passport holders will exist in the national identity register.

In Italy, two national biometric ID programs are currently underway - the citizen ID card and the foreign worker ID card.  The Italian government has plans for the entire adult population to carry a citizen ID card by 2011 - the card itself has a 5-year validity period, after which a new card must be applied for.  The card represents the first order of for LaserCard’s biometric memory platform,  and contains a secure one megabyte optical memory stripe in which an individual’s demographics, color facial image, digitized signature, fingerprint and other biometrics are recorded.

One extremely useful application of biometric technology arises in the field of time and attendance. Huge levels of productivity are lost by companies around the world due to absence/lateness of staff. The management of such companies took action by requiring staff members to clock in when they arrive and clock out when they leave. Hence, they could be paid wages based on the exact hours they worked. However, the emergence of “buddy clocking” managed to largely beat this system. It only took a few staff members to actually come to work, then clock all their absent collegues in, for the problem to reoccur. Thankfully, biometrics has arrived on the scene to largely eliminate this problem. Workers may not be recognised based on their fingerprints - essentially an infallable way of accurately tracking the attendance of a workforce. Biometric time and attendance systems integrate with most existing payroll software to facilitate the generation of automated, accurate wages. This utilisation of biometrics can vastly increase profits for a company, and consequently is being adopted across the globe.