Biometric Modality Selection
To be able to select a proper biometric system, you need to compare them on various aspects. You need to assess the suitability of the systems to your requirements in terms of convenience, system specifications and performance, and your budget.
You can select best suitable biometric system by studying various criteria for their effectiveness.
Criteria for Effective Biometric System
There are seven basic criteria for measuring effectiveness of a biometric system −
Uniqueness − It determines how uniquely a biometric system can recognize a user from a group of users. It is a primary criterion.
Universality − It indicates requirement for unique characteristics of each person in the world, which cannot be reproduced. It is a secondary criterion.
Permanence − It indicates that a personal trait recorded needs to be constant in the database for a certain time period.
Collectability − It is the ease at which a person’s trait can be acquired, measured, or processed further.
Performance − It is the efficiency of system in terms of accuracy, speed, fault handling, and robustness.
Acceptability − It is the user-friendliness, or how good the users accept the technology such that they are cooperative to let their biometric trait captured and assessed.
Circumvention − It is the ease with which a trait is possibly imitated using an artifact or substitute.
Comparison of Various Biometric Modalities
Let us compare all the biometric system in the following terms −
| Biometric Characteristic |
Universality |
Uniqueness |
Permanence |
Collect-Ability |
Performance |
Accept-ability |
Circum-vention |
| Finger Print |
Medium |
High |
High |
Medium |
High |
Medium |
High |
| Face Recognition |
High |
Low |
Medium |
High |
Low |
High |
Low |
| Hand Geometry |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
High |
Medium |
Medium |
Medium |
| Iris Recognition |
High |
High |
High |
Medium |
High |
Low |
High |
| Retinal Scan |
High |
High |
Medium |
Low |
High |
Low |
High |
| DNA |
High |
High |
Medium |
High |
High |
Low |
Low |
| Keystroke |
High |
Low |
Low |
High |
Medium |
High |
High |
| Signature |
Low |
Low |
Low |
High |
Low |
High |
Low |
| Voice |
Medium |
Low |
Low |
Medium |
Low |
High |
Low |
You can select an appropriate biometric system depending upon the criteria you need to deal with as shown in the table.
