These days people use different types of passwords and personal identification numbers such as using different alphabets with capital letters and numbers in between the password or token we use in accessing different accounts and many other social networking sites, we even use them to withdraw money from the ATM’s and play online games. This is nothing but the digital revolution. This revolution is being followed by many people all over the world since many decades. So, people used to change passwords every now and then to keep their accounts and transactions safe from being hacked. There are many people in the present world who hack different passwords of different sites such as social networking sites or even our online banking sites. If this continues to happen, then the victims need to suffer a lot along with the network providers.
So, a machine cannot detect whether the person who access the account is the right user or not. For example, a person enters an ATM and withdraws money from a particular account by entering the correct pin number even though the person is not the cardholder. The ATM machine cannot detect this. So, to eradicate this type of issues, finger prints are going to be our new identification marks to access our accounts without any repeated use of alphabetical or numeric passwords.
Authentication of the data is usually performed using persons password, or by using the persons smartphone. So, a new approach is being expanded very fast that relies on an attribute or metric of the human body. This nothing but the Biometric technology. Biometric technology provides a key to identify the exact and the correct user. This technology works even though the user does not have any input key to access. Hence, there will be nothing to forget, loose and even no need to carry. Hence, fingerprints and the face recognition devices are the mostly used biometric devices for authentication. These devices scan the face, retina, iris, palm, voice, fingerprint of people to access the accounts. This are the best ever security keys to access data. No one can access data of a particular person without proper recognition of the persons human body. Even people are bringing changes in the biometric devices and are including behavioral characteristics such as written signatures, voice modulation, keyboard typing patterns. Hence biometric devices can either work as verification or identification systems.
Table of Contents
How can a person be Identified?
A person can be identified or recognized by matching their features against a database, which were stored earlier using a persons passport or any other documentations.
The biometric identification processes are as follows.
Biometric Characteristics:
Biometric characters of a person are acquired using sensor measurements such as cameras, microphone, or fingerprint scanner and captures the characteristics of the user and creates a digital template. The features are extracted from the sensed biometric devices.
Comparison of Biometric Characteristics:
The sensed biometric characters are compared with the another characters whether to identify, if there are any other persons who have the same characteristics like the others.
Multi-factor authentication is more secure and reliable than any other device because, it uses two or more features to identify the particular user. Most of the multi-factor authentication are mostly based on sending a text message to the mobile number given by the user while creating the account. The device will send a message and then tell the user to enter the message. If the message code matches with the given code then then the person can login into the account, if not it will be denied.
Biometric plays a major role in creating a national ID across the globe. New sensors such as Nymi, a device which reads the users heart beat with the help of the ECG signals to provide access to an account.
Hence biometric plays a major role not only in banks or any other security issues but also in smartphone devices like iPhone 5s, to replace the four digit pin with the users fingerprint scanning, which is recently released for security reasons to access the device.