Advantages And Disadvantages Of Biometric System

Ever heard the saying along the lines of “everyone is unique in their own way”? When it comes to biometric, that saying is very accurate due to the fact that uniqueness the basic premise of biometrics. Biometrics is one of the most effective technologies that is used to distinguish the variances between individuals (Cantore, 2011). Biometrics focuses on the minor and major differences of individuals by using many diverse methods, techniques, and features. Throughout the years, biometrics has been used to authenticate and verify individuals’ identities. In this paper I will be explaining what biometrics is as well as describing its effectiveness, accuracy, and legality. I will also examine court cases involving biometrics and give my opinion on its’ purpose in the field of criminal justice.

Biometrics technology aims at utilizing major and distinctive characteristics such as behavioral or biological, for the sake of positively indentifying people. With the help of a combination of hardware and specific identifying sets of rules, a basic human attribute, automated biometric recognition mimics to distinguish and categorize other people as individual and unique. But the challenges surrounding biometrics are great as well.

The thing with biometrics is that it works great only if the verifier can verify two things: Firstly, that the biometric to be used has come from the intended person at the time of verification, and Secondly, which the biometric should match with the master biometric entry in the file database. If the system can't do that, it can't work. Biometrics are good in uniquely identifying the people, butat the same time they are not secrets and cannot be trusted [1].

The physical protection of information, personnel, software, buildings and other material resources are the first thing that should be assessed when looking into security, obviously there are unavoidable disasters such as natural disasters, man-made disasters and loss of electricity, air or water but most issues are preventable, by monitoring who has access to what and how much access they have, by locking rooms and PC’s, using person specific swipe cards, bolting computers to desks, having effective CCTV in place, and by having effective monitoring tools an IT team can keep a close eye on valuable data and prevent risks. Electronic security systems are designed to protect against unwanted personnel and they provide free roaming for wanted personnel. An electronic security system is a series of biometric locks, or a single biometric lock. A biometric lock is a system that can provide control of entry (or exit) within a designated area by the use of an electronic locking facility. The most common biometric lock is a pin pad system which is a keypad that requires the exact combinations of keys to open the lock, the keys are generally numbers but can be emphasised as letters, shapes, or sounds. Secondly and commonly are swipe cards which are encoded cards which hold information on the user, there is normally a swipe slot to enter a facility that have chosen to

Biometrics are important to not only information systems, but to information security as a subject. Today, most information is kept secure via ID cards or secret information, such as a PIN, password, pattern, etc., the downside to this type of security is the lack of a failsafe (Ashok, Shivashankar and Mudiraj)! What would happen if an ID card was lost? Or a PIN, password or pattern was leaked to individuals who were not on a “need to know” basis”? This is where the importance of biometrics comes into play.

Identification processes are significantly more complex and error prone than verification processes. Biometrics technologies are indicators of authentication assurance with results based on a predetermined threshold with measurable False Accept Rates and False Reject Rates.

Biometric Authentication refers to the usage of software that looks for physical markers to allow access to a system. Some of the most commonly used physical markers are fingerprints, face-recognition, voice-recognition, and iris-recognition (Williams & Sawyer, 2015). As no two humans are exactly alike biometics are less likely to be hacked, although it is not impossible.

Technology is always improving, and new software is always being developed. One of these new technologies that have been developed is biometrics. Biometrics is the process by which a person's unique physical and other traits are detected and recorded by an electronic device or system as means of confirming identity (Dictionary.com, 2013). In recent years, the FBI has employed new biometrics technology.

The solutions presented in the report have an edge over different models. The reason is that, once an attacker obtains access to a unique finger impression template, he can claim to be a validated client. Yet,

Ultimately all experts agreed that biometrics are superior to older methods of online identification. But experts question if this new technology is enhancing the customers experience. Experts debate these new features because they are more reliable than passwords but when hacked can give out more personal information. The social network for those in the IT industry Spiceworks says that 90% of companies will use biometrics by 2020.Companies like Microsoft and Facebook are already using this technology because it is a cheaper alternative than passwords. Passwords can get hacked, but are also easy to change, biometrics can be hacked, but users cannot change biometrics. Not only do hackers access your fingerprints, but they also have all of your online secured personal information. This advancement has proved to be beneficial for companies, but consumers are wary to give up this information. This is due to the fact the companies are selling this information to third parties without consent from the users. The European Union is addressing citizens' concerns mandating that companies give consent to customers. Hopefully other nations like the U.S. will adopt these laws to protect citizens. The article draws that biometrics can help companies get to really know their customers but customers no longer trust them because they have gone too

Current authentication systems suffer from many weaknesses. Textual passwords are commonly used. Users tend to choose meaningful words from dictionaries, which make textual passwords easy to break and vulnerable to dictionary or brute force attacks. Many available graphical passwords have a password space that is less than or equal to the textual password space.Smart cards or tokens can be stolen. Many biometric authentications have been proposed.However, users tend to resist using biometrics because of the intrusiveness and the effect on their privacy. Moreover, biometrics cannot be revoked.

We live in a world today, in which technology moves at a very rapid pace. Many of these technological advances can be used to make our everyday lives easier and safer. One of these new technologies is Biometrics. Biometrics is the process of measuring a person’s physical properties. This would include measuring things like fingerprints, retinas, odor, vein structure on the back of the hand and many other things. Biometrics is a very important topic because it would create better security precautions for certain places that need to be secure. Biometrics will make our society safer by only allowing authorized people out of secure facilities and by keeping the unauthorized people out. Throughout the rest of this

In addition, biometrics can be implemented either on the server or client side of a system. The fact that clients are remotely located challenges its implementation. This is because this type of authentication gives the client responsibility and authority for the authentication (Itakura & Tsujii, 2005). Nonetheless, efforts have been made to strengthen client side authentication such as the inclusion of error-correcting code, fuzzy concepts for behavior profiling, and key generation (Bhatnagar, Lall, & Patney, 2010).

Biometric technology offers an alternative to the most used system currently in place in most operations: passwords or personal identification numbers (PIN). Instead of users inputting their password or PIN, users interact with a computer terminal that will scan their finger, face, voice, retina, etc. to identify them. Many of the next generation personal computer systems will have integrated biometric technology so that no external hardware is needed. In the mean time, users can buy small peripherals, like a mouse with integrated biometric technology or a small finger terminal for finger scans, to secure their personal computers.

Biometric technologies are getting better and finely tuned. The rate of false readings and errors has sharply fallen. However it still requires careful consideration and planning to implement a biometric identification system. They are most costly and complicated to implement as compared with other authentication systems. A proper evaluation of the system is important before purchasing any biometric system. A thorough risk analysis is necessary. In many cases biometrics may be overkill. Biometrics must be used if there is high level of risk involved. Customer acceptance is also important when logging on to company websites. Home users might not be ready to install biometrics on home computers for online banking.