Biometric Fingerprint Reader

Biometrics is the science and technology of measuring and analyzing biological data. In information technology, biometrics refers to technologies that measure and analyze human body characteristics, such as DNA, fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements, for authentication purposes.

Authentication by biometric verification is becoming increasingly common in corporate and public security systems, consumer electronics and point of sale (POS) applications. In addition to security, the driving force behind biometric verification has been convenience.

Biometric devices, such as fingerprint scanners, consist of :

• A reader or scanning device
• Software that converts the scanned information into digital form and compares match points
• A database that stores the biometric data for comparison

To prevent identity theft, biometric data is usually encrypted when it's gathered. Here's how biometric verification works on the back end: To convert the biometric input, a software application is used to identify specific points of data as match points. The match points in the database are processed using an algorithm that translates that information into a numeric value. The database value is compared with the biometric input the end user has entered into the scanner and authentication is either approved or denied.

Among all the biometric techniques, fingerprint-based identification is the oldest method which has been successfully used in numerous applications. Everyone is known to have unique, immutable fingerprints. A fingerprint is made of a series of ridges and furrows on the surface of the finger. The uniqueness of a fingerprint can be determined by the pattern of ridges and furrows as well as the minutiae points. Minutiae points are local ridge characteristics that occur at either a ridge bifurcation or a ridge ending.

Fingerprint scanning is the acquisition and recognition of a person’s fingerprint characteristics for identification purposes. This allows the recognition of a person through quantifiable physiological characteristics that verify the identity of an individual.

There are basically two different types of finger-scanning technology that make this possible. One is an optical method, which starts with a visual image of a finger. The other uses a semiconductor-generated electric field to image a finger. There is a range of ways to identify fingerprints. They include traditional police methods of matching minutiae, straight pattern matching, moiré fringe patterns and ultrasonic.