More Than a Pretty Face, Biometrics and SmartCard Tokens

In the modern world, there is an ever-growing need to authenticate and identify individuals automatically. The current technologies of using a personal identification number (PIN) or password for these purposes are inadequate because they are disclosable, transferable and hard to remember. Biometric-based authentication and identification methods are emerging as the most reliable. With rapid progress in electronic and Internet commerce, there is also a growing need to authenticate the identity of a person for secure transaction processing. The goal of biometric authentication is to determine if the user is the authentic enrolled user or an impostor. Assuming the user has previously enrolled, positive verification or identification consists of quality input, processing and successful outcome of the matching process. When designing a system to handle large population identification, accuracy and reliability of authentication are significant challenges. The biometric systems need to handle variations, distortions and noise in inputs from the real world. This paper will address many of the types of Biometrics available as well as the use of smart card technology.