Future of Biometrics
Biometrics is described as the use of human physical features to verify identity and has been in use since the beginning of recorded history. Only recently, biometrics has been used in today’s high-tech society for the prevention of identity theft. In this paper, we will be understanding biometrics, exploring the history of biometrics, examples of today’s current technology and where biometrics are expected to go in the future.
By definition, “biometrics” (Woodward, Orlans, and Higgins, 2003) is the science of using biological properties to identify individuals; for example, fingerprints, retina scans, and voice recognition. We’ve all seen in the movies, how the heroes and the villains have used other’s fingerprints and voice patterns to get into the super, secret vault. While these ideas were fantasy many years ago, today biometrics are being used and you may not even know it.
By combining the Greek words “bio”, which stands for “life”, and “metrics”, which stands for “measure”, you produce the term “biometrics” or “life measurements”. To understand biometrics at the most basic level, all one has to do is to picture a loved one in their mind. A human can specifically recognize another human by remembering an eye color, a hair color, a nose shape, a wart, or any combination of facial features. While the human mind is capable of remembering the physical characteristics of several humans, it is impossible to retain, reference, and sort thousands of biometric data which may contain details down to the molecular level. Today, this has been made easier by computer technology.
The first recorded use of biometrics dates back to the 14th century when the Spanish explorer Joao de Barros witnessed Chinese parents pressing their children’s inked fingers and feet onto paper allowing them to differentiate one child from another. Through Barros’ travels, he noted that Chinese businessmen also closed various financial and business transactions with fingerprints. There are other pieces of historical evidence indicating the use of biometrics for various purposes prior to Barros’ records. However, none were successfully documented.
Vacca (2007) found the use of biometrics would slip into the darkness until the mid to late 1800s when it would reemerge to be known as “anthropometrics” and address the identification crisis facing the world resulting from a population explosion, human mobility, and a need to positively identify individuals. In 1858, Sir William Herschel stamped the handprint of employees to determine whether the person in line to receive a paycheck was an employee or an imposter.
Another discrepancy between actual forensics and how it is portrayed in the media is the availability of information in databases. There is only a small percentage of the entire population’s fingerprints or DNA samples stored within databases such as the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). This makes finding a match between a DNA sample or fingerprint difficult, as a match would only be found if the person’s information was already stored within the database. If there is no match previously stored in a database, the fingerprint or DNA sample could be potentially rendered useless within a trial. Typically, in order to perform an analysis, investigators must already have a suspect in mind and request a DNA or fingerprint sample from him or her. If the suspect does not want to provide one however, the sample collected as evidence may not count as valid. The CSI effect creates an idealized image that all crimes can be solved with a hair or drop of blood, but this is not always the case in real life.
Now-a-day, biometric authentication system or simply biometric system, offers a reliable and user-friendly solution to the problem of identity management by establishing the identity of an individual based on “who the person is”, rather than the knowledge-based i.e. “what the person knows" or token-based i.e. “what the person carries” (Jain et al., 1999). The word biometrics is derived from the Greek words bios (meaning life) and metron (meaning measurement); biometric identifiers are measurements from living human body (Maltoni et al., 2003). Biometric system refers to automatically identify or verify an individual's identity based on his physiological characteristics (e.g. fingerprints, face, iris and hand geometry) and behavioral characteristics (e.g. gait, voice and signature) (Figure 2.1). Ancillary characteristics (also known as soft biometric) such as gender, ethnicity, age, eye color, skin color, scars and tatoos also provide some information about the identity of a person. However, soft biometric traits do not provide sufficient evidence to precisely determine the identity (Jain et al., 2004a). Biometric traits provide a unique and permanent binding between an individual and his identity. This “binding" cannot be easily lost, forgotten, shared or forged and free from making false repudiation claims. Biometrics offers several advantages over conventional security measures. These include
DNA fingerprinting is a technique of testing to identify and evaluate the genetic information taken from an organism. It involves the use of DNA to create a fingerprint that is unique in every organism. In case of human use it has many benefits. DNA fingerprinting can solve crimes, identify one person from another, be used for paternity testing and even, when done early, reveal a person’s risk of disease in the future. However, there are also many negatives of DNA fingerprinting. The main negatives involve issues such as privacy concerns and whether the information contained in the DNA should be available to others. For example, people may be affected at a later stage such as when applying for insurance or careers. In 2003, The Department of Health published “The White Paper”, proposing that all people be fingerprinted at birth. What if DNA use gets out of hand and leads to misuse?
My field of study is Criminal Justice. A new development in this field had been put in place by the FBI this new development is Next Generation Identification system or (NGI) which is what it will be referred to in this essay. NGI is what will be enhancing and/or replacing IAFIS which is the current system used my law enforcement. NGI is a state-of -the-art biometric identification service. NGI is a one point two billion dollar investment by the U.S. federal government. It will take a total of ten years for NGI to be fully activated. NGI is divided into six different stages, which are ten-print processing, RISC, national palm repository and latent searches,facial recognition and Rap Back,Iris recognition, and Tech refresh.
The Blooding is a true story of the first murder case solved by a genetic “fingerprinting”. In 1983, a fifteen-year-old Lynda Mann’s was found murdered and raped near the English village of Narborough in Lester, England. The local police had no suspects and no clues. During the time, Alec Jefferys, a professor, developed techniques for DNA fingerprinting to see if the pattern of inheritance was as simple as he expected it to be. The Lynda Mann’s murder case was still enlarged and open for a couple years.
Law enforcement uses several methods to solve all types of crimes. Having a variety of ways to help solve an investigation gives officials an advantage. If one method fails or isn’t helpful, there are several others they can rely on. For instance, if there are no physical witnesses to a crime, the criminal may have left a fingerprint at the crime scene. An individual’s fingerprint is unique, “no two persons have exactly the same arrangement of ridge patterns” (“Fingerprint ID”). Fingerprints of criminals and of civilians are collected and stored. Also, “People who apply for government jobs, jobs that handle confidential information, banking jobs, teaching jobs, law enforcement jobs, and any job that involves security issues can be fingerprinted” (“The First ID”). Fingerprints are processed within hours and minutes through the Integrated Automated Fingerprint ID System. This system was developed in 1991, and made it easier for different law enforcement agencies to store and share fingerprints.
It stores DNA identification records of many people convicted of crimes. Secondly, it also contains analyses retrieved from unknown human remains. Finally, it kept analyses of genetic samples retrieved from a crime scene.
DNA fingerprinting has become one of the best scientific methods to identify genetic information called DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA fingerprinting is an unforgettable part of society, assisting to prove innocence or guilt in criminal cases, resolving immigration arguments and clarifying paternity. This essay will look at whether new born babies should be DNA fingerprint profiled at birth by analysing both the positive and negative aspects of this procedure. Being a fairly new procedure, there are many arguments for and against DNA finger printing new borns. Supporting arguments for this procedure are that it makes it easier to determine paternity and easier to solve crime scenes in forensic science. However, there are also arguments against this procedure, including, privacy concerns and issues on accuracy.
Judson, Olivia. (2008). Sticky fingers: fingerprints are one of the oldest biometric measures of identity. What do we actually know about them? Natural History. 117.10. p16.
Everyone has a personal identity-size, shape, features- every characteristic is different. It is what makes each of us unique. Uniqueness is what makes us all so very different and makes us all human. Everyone deserves to be known after death, it is the last sign of respect for the dead. Rather they died a natural death, a man-made disaster, or a natural disaster they deserve to be known, and returned to their family. But, that isn't always as simple as it may seem. The Procedures, Historic uses, and the criticisms are all very important in establishing a face for every John, Baby, or Jane Doe from any time in history.
The belief that signing legibly on the LCD screens at the checkout counter is necessary, is incorrect. Alex Kuczynski proves that these signatures are useless in her article, “Identity Crisis.” Kuczynski, a contemporary writer, uses this article to not only argue that signing your name on a screen has lost its importance, but that all personal identity is being lost in society today. People have become reliant on technology and their busy lives keep them from actually sharing real life experiences. In the digital era, we have lost our identity and become a generic number, as T.K. Cheung stated, “the personal stamps have become unidentifiable and unrecognizable.”
Biometric technology is used for the ways humans can be identified by unique aspects of their bodies, such as fingerprints, body odor, our voices and many more. If one was to think about privacy rights, he/she would be concerned about the widespread adoption of these systems, since such systems could easily be used to develop a record of known rebellious people and/or dangerous criminals, to be used for social control purposes. Although that may seem pretty good and a positive thing for the society, one should take into account of the defects and errors of technology. Of the many biometrics technologies that are being developed and are already developed, facial recognition is one of the most threatening because it can be deployed secretly; one may not know whether or when they can be caught in a surveillance camera for such facial recognition biometrics. Additionally, tests have found that the miscalculations for facial biometrics technologies are very high. As a result, according to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, innocent people can be erroneously identified as dangerous criminals and actual dangerous criminals and/or suspected terrorists can fail to be detected overall, allowing for a huge injustice and unfairness. Privacy rights concerned with biometrics have sparked a concern and should be dealt with; otherwise, this is just one of the
“The term -information security- means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction” (United States Code, 2008). In order to ensure the identity of who is trying to access the information, the concept of “Biometric Technology” has been developed in the last years. This essay will start explaining this concept and the characteristics of its development through the time. Then, the essay will offer a brief explanation of biometric systems operation and a description of different biometric systems developed until now. Finally, this research analyzes the current and future applications and the issues that surround it.
... Since we are all unique, we all have a precise and specific “imprinting protocol” that makes us human. Finding our exact “imprint” is “the mystery of the human person” (Cortez, 93). But, “the emergence of higher-level properties and complex systems with novel properties. cannot be comprehensively understood in lower-level terms alone,” affirming that what defines a physical being as being “human,” or what delineates David as a “real boy” is ultimately abstract and unknown (Cortez, 94).
National Identification System which I call NIS is a form of identification card that is a “portable document, typically a plasticized card with digitally-embedded information” (Rouse, 2010). Most of us carry around a form of NIS which confirms our identity, like our drivers licenses.