Biometric Background - How it
all Started
It
is tempting to think of biometrics as being sci-fi futuristic technology
that we shall all be using together with solar powered cars, food
pills and other fiendish devices some time in the near future.
This popular image suggests that they are a product of the late
twentieth century computer age.
In fact, the basic principles of biometric verification
were understood and practised somewhat earlier. Thousands
of years earlier to be precise, as our friends in the
Nile valley routinely employed biometric verification
in a number of everyday business situations. There
are many references to individuals being formally identified
via unique physiological parameters such as scars,
measured physical criteria or a combination of features
such as complexion, eye colour, height and so on. This
would often be the case in relation to transactions
in the agricultural sector where grain and provisions
would be supplied to a central repository and also
with regard to legal proceedings of various descriptions.
Of course, they didn’t have automated electronic
biometric readers and computer networks (as far as
we know), and they certainly were not dealing with
the numbers of individuals that we have to accommodate
today, but the basic principles were similar.
 Later, in the nineteenth century there was a peak of
interest as researchers into criminology attempted
to relate physical features and characteristics with
criminal tendencies. This resulted in a variety of measuring devices being produced
and much data being collected. The results were not conclusive but the idea of
measuring individual physical characteristics seemed to stick and the parallel
development of fingerprinting became the international methodology among police
forces for identity verification.
The absolute uniqueness or otherwise of fingerprints is often debated, and the
criteria that different countries employ to verify a fingerprint varies across
the globe with a greater or lesser number of minutiae points required to be matched.
Added to this is the question of personal interpretation which may be pertinent
in border line cases. Never the less, this was the best methodology on offer
and still the primary one for police forces, although the matching process is
very often automated these days.
With this background, it is hardly surprising that
for many years a fascination with the possibility of
using electronics and the power of microprocessors
to automate identity verification had occupied the
minds of individuals and organisations both in the
military and commercial sectors. Various projects were
initiated to look at the potential of biometrics and
one of these eventually led to a large and rather ungainly
hand geometry reader being produced. It wasn’t pretty,
but it worked and motivated it’s designers to further refine the concept.
Eventually, a small specialist company was formed and a much smaller, and considerably
enhanced hand geometry reader became one of the cornerstones of the early biometric
industry. This device worked well and found favour in numerous biometric projects
around the world.
In parallel, other biometric methodologies such as fingerprint verification were
being steadily improved and refined to the point where they would become reliable,
easily deployed devices. In recent years, we have also seen much interest in
iris scanning and facial recognition techniques which offer the potential of
a non contact technology, although there are additional issues involved in this
respect.
The last decade has seen the biometric industry mature from a handful of specialist
manufacturers struggling for sales, to a global industry shipping respectable
numbers of devices and poised for significant growth as large scale applications
start to unfold.
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