The Future of Biometrics: Trends and Emerging Uses of Biometric Technology

The future of biometrics is very promising for law enforcement applications as well as private industry uses. By measuring facial geometry, surveillance systems can identify suspects against characteristics stored in the security system’s database. “There is a popular trend to view biometrics as a science fiction mythology, but the reality is that biometrics is the future of the security industry and is rapidly becoming recognized as the most accurate identification technology on the market,” he says. Don Mihae, who was recently hired by JAD Communication & Safety Systems (JADCS) to lead their safety division.

The future of biometrics will include e-commerce applications for added checkout security, and biometrics will protect against unauthorized access to cars and cell phones. In the future, biometric technology will further develop 3-D infrared facial recognition access control, passive real-time facial recognition surveillance and visitor management authentication systems. A4Vision, a provider of 3D facial scanning and identification software, already uses specialized algorithms to interpret the traditional 2D camera image and transfer it to a 3D representation of a registered face. This makes it almost impossible to fool the biometric system with photographs or other images.

Strengthening existing biometric innovations for future growth

All of these security innovations will make biometric technology more accurate and extend its use.

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Access control facial recognition – Biometric technologies will allow authorized users to enter a specific property or location in a building. Today, A4Vision uses a 3-D infrared facial recognition system to project a dim light onto a subject’s face for optimal identification. But in the future, this biometric technology will be strengthened so that the subject does not have to be a few meters from the video surveillance cameras.

or Passive surveillance by facial recognition – Hidden surveillance cameras will be installed to monitor an entrance of any type of building to accurately identify a possible suspect or terrorist against a database of millions of images in less than a second. The alerts will then be relayed to security personnel in real time.

or Alert management – This is a fully customizable command center to guard against potential security breaches. The center uses real-time technologies to send security alerts to multiple locations via PDA (personal digital assistant) devices and other mobile technologies.

As companies need increases for government agencies and large to implement high-tech security systems to solve crimes or protect employees, biometric technology will improve as investor confidence increases. Once consumer confidence is evident, biometric research will provide further innovations, which in turn will strengthen future performance, and this cycle will continue to develop in a positive direction.

But for the field of biometric technology to grow, there must be industry standards for the greatest compatibility between applications and hardware. ISO / IEC JTC1 is the governing body for international biometric standards, but this standardization is still in progress. In the future, fixed biometric standards will be implemented to guide vendors and developers in the areas of biometric application profiles, interfaces, and system performance.

With such a young technology, biometric and identification technology has a lot to gain from improved standards and accuracy. Probably in a short time, biometric developers will exceed the quality of their current product so that the future of the biometric field is secured in the high-tech market.

Copyright © 2005 Evaluseek Publishing.