Biometrics: Bad News For Spy Movies, Good News For People
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - AIM Connections

Modern biometric technologies protect privacy and can't be fooled by fakes

 

Bert Moore

Editor

 

It's been a staple of espionage thrillers for years: a fake fingerprint is used to fool a biometrics lock or, in more gruesome scenarios, various body parts are removed from an unfortunate victim for the same reason.

 

But vein recognition technology makes both of those scenarios impossible -- and keeps your identity safe as well. While it may be bad news for TV and movie writers, it's good news for the real world.

 

While the more common biometric technologies such as fingerprint recognition and hand geometry will continue to be viable in many applications, for those where additional security is required (such as unmonitored access control points) or to allay privacy concerns, vein recognition offers significant advantages.

 

Vein recognition technologies (fingers, hands, eyes) read the pattern of veins which is only visible under the skin or in the back of the eye. These patterns can't be photocopied, created from gummy candy, graphite powder and tape or any of the other staples of television and movies. Some readers even check to ensure that the pattern is dynamic -- in other words, they check to be sure that blood is actually flowing through the veins.

 

The technologies are more secure than fingerprint identification and also address the common, although somewhat fallacious, privacy concerns about biometrics.

 

There are two basic concerns. First, that complete fingerprints are stored on biometric cards. Second, that someone can "steal" your biometric identity. A third, unrelated, issue is that chronic drug users and some Asian women may have very faint or no fingerprints.

 

In the first case, only fingerprint minutia are recorded -- that is, the characteristics of the fingerprint that make it unique. It is not possible to reproduce a complete fingerprint from these minutia. Fingerprint minutia can be thought of as a sort of connect-the-dots picture where most of the dots required to draw the picture are missing and the dots that are present are not numbered. There would be an infinite number of ways to "connect" the dots -- and all but one would be wrong.

 

Admittedly, if a complete fingerprint is scanned for comparison against the minutia, a match would be found. In fact, that's how biometrics cards work. The minutia on the card are compared against the minutia identified from the actual fingerprint. The concern is that a comprehensive government database of everyone's fingerprints will be developed and that this will somehow be used to track ordinary citizens.

 

Vein recognition technology eliminates that concern simply because you cannot leave a pattern of your finger, palm or eye veins on any surface for some forensic investigator to find and compare against some government database. Vein patterns truly are a "covert" method of personal identification that can't be seen or tracked surreptitiously.

 

As far as someone stealing your "biometric" identity -- it sounds scary because, as one observer commented, "I can get a new PIN if I need to but I can't get new fingerprints."

 

While the statement above is true, it sounds a lot scarier than it is. Fingerprint minutia stored on a card, for example, is compared to an actual fingerprint. Even if someone copies the minutia from the card, they would then have to construct a false fingerprint to go with it. Admittedly, some readers can be fooled by fake fingerprints but that requires the ability to duplicate someone's fingerprint without their permission. And this is not really as easy as the television and movies would have you believe.

 

However, for applications where there might be some real concern about a fingerprint being left on the reader's faceplate, there are "fingerchip" readers that only read a single line at a time (rather than taking a full image). For these readers, the user must slide his or her finger over the scanner for the fingerprint to be read. This sliding motion means that there is no clear print left on the faceplate for anyone to try to replicate.

 

But, again, vein recognition eliminates the problem entirely. "Stealing" your finger vein pattern, for example, would be very difficult at best. And this would only give someone the pattern and not anything to compare it against. Putting this information onto a biometric card would be useless for those readers that require a dynamic vein pattern -- even if someone managed to disassemble the reader, bypass the image sensor and input the data directly into the recognition algorithm. Without replicating the pulsing of blood in the veins, the duplicate would be worthless. In essence, it would be like someone copying the key to your front door but not the key to the three deadbolts on the door.

 

In short, modern biometric technologies make it possible to provide security both of physical objects and locations as well as personal privacy. And that is good news for the real world.

 

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Comments on this column? E-mail me: Bert Moore, Editor

 

 

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