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History of biometric technology in recognition

The earliest form of biometric technology can be traced back to the 1800s when a Persian police desk clerk and anthropologist, Alphonse Bertillon developed a method of recognizing (identifying) criminals that were later called Bertillonage. Bertillonage was an anthropometry system in which the body measurements were taken for comparison and classification. The system required precise and numerous measurements of parts of the body about differential markings and movements on the surface of the body such as tattoos, birthmarks, and scars.

However, before Alphonse Bertillon developed the anthropometrics system, Sir William Herschel developed a systematic capture of hand images for purposes of identification (Jain, & Kumar, 2012). Sir William’s invention was recorded in the history books as the first capture of finger and hand images uniformly adopted for identification. Some other inventions were made in the 19th century, but serious uses and applications came in the 20th and 21st century. In 1903 for instance, New York State Prisons started using fingerprint technology. The NY prison adopted the fingerprint technology from the New York Civil Service Commission.

The fingerprint technology was used in identifying criminals in 1903. The fingerprint system application and use were accelerated when St’ Louis, Missouri Police Department, and the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth established fingerprint bureaus (National Research Council, & Whither Biometrics Committee, 2010). The growing demand and need by law enforcement officers for a clearinghouse and national repository for fingerprint records let to the establishment of Act of Congress on July 1921 which established Identification Division of the Federal Bureau Investigation.

The fingerprint recognition was pushed for automation in 1969 by the FBI which then led to the establishment of Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Jain, & Kumar, 2012). Another FBI milestone was the launching of DNA forensic database in 1998 which was used for digitally storing, searching, and retrieving DNA markers for judicial law enforcement. Face recognition is another biometric technology that had gone through various stages of development and advancement, the earliest being in 2000 when the first face recognition vendor test was conducted (Jain, Nandakumar, & Ross, 2016).

Another significant milestone in biometrics technology was the establishment of West Virginia University biometrics degree program. In January of 2001, a face recognition biometric system was installed to recognize football fans who attended the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida. Palm print biometric technology came to light in 2002 when it was forwarded to Identification Services Committee (National Research Council, & Whither Biometrics Committee, 2010).

A significant milestone of applications of biometrics began in 2010 when American national security apparatus utilized biometrics to identify and recognize terrorists, a development which led to the identification of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Several other historical milestones have been made in the use of biometric technology in recognition that may not be adequately addressed in this short paper

Current Applications.

Biometric technology in the modern world has found varied applications in recognition and identification. The most common application of biometric recognition and technology has been in the field of criminal investigation. In law enforcement, especially criminal investigations, biometric technology is widely used and applied. Different biometric technologies as will be explained have improve systems for identifying and recognizing criminals, by matching the biometric information stored in databases and those obtained during arrests and booking. There are different types biometrics used in identification and criminal investigation.

Law enforcement use fingerprint biometrics, face biometrics, DNA biometrics, palm print biometrics, iris biometrics, voice biometrics, and key emerging biometrics such as gait and keystroke to gather valuable criminal information or data that aid their investigations. Biometric technology has found a lot of uses in security, especially in the transport sector, largely in airports. In airport security, iris recognition has been in use for several years. People who use the airport must sign up to a scheme and then their eyes and iris are scanned.

The details of the passenger are recorded on an international information database and rather than waiting in long passport lines or queues, they simply walk into booths in the airport reception and look into cameras. The biometric software is capable of scanning the iris and matching the details of the passenger with the available information stored on an international database (Jain, Nandakumar, & Ross, 2016). Thirdly, biometric recognition is used in building access, especially in high-tech buildings where the security is of great concern.

Fingerprint recognition software for building access is not new in the field of biometric technology. Today, thousands of high security buildings globally are using biometric technology to recognize those gaining access in well protected establishments. For instance, security agencies such as the FBI, CIA and Homeland have their major buildings incorporated with biometric technology to ensure that only authorized people gain access to these establishments (Gates, 2011). Building access is probably one of the major applications of biometric technology recognition and identification that has been around for several years. Instead of using scanners, fingerprint technology protects against any foreign intrusion.

Another current biometric technology application in recognition is in cars. In the United Kingdom for instance, it is estimated that more than 2 million cars are using biometric technology in different recognition applications (Jain, Nandakumar, & Ross, 2016). The same is true for the motor-vehicle industry in the United States. Voice recognition is a common form of biometric recognition that is being used through entertainments systems or Bluetooth to unlock vehicles.

In blood banks, the biometric recognition technology is used by donors to access their blood details. In the past, blue cards with donor information were issued (Jain, Nandakumar, & Ross, 2016). Today, such details are stored digitally and therefore donors are only required to use iris or fingerprint recognition to access their vital details. Schools are also using biometric recognition technology that enable their students to record attendance, check library books, and even sometimes pay for meals.

Future: New Emerging Biometric Technologies.

There is a lot of research into three new areas of biometric technology: gait biometric, keystroke biometrics, and odour biometrics. These three emerging solutions are likely to affect the manner in which biometric technology is used in recognition. Gait biometric technology is being developed to help recognize an individual from a distant point. The recognition is based on gait and the biometric is useful in surveillance scenarios where the identity of an individual can be established surreptitiously (Mason, Traoré, & Woungang, 2016).

Researchers are explaining that since gait is largely a behavioral biometric, it is largely to be influenced by factors such as nature of clothing, walking surface, and body weight. Keystroke biometrics is another new emerging technology in this field. Keystroke biometric technology is used in recognizing an individual by offering adequate discriminatory information. Odour biometrics is a new area that is being explored. Researchers are tapping into the knowledge that each object is capable of spreading around an odour that is characteristic of its chemical nature and composition, and hence can be used in distinguishing different objects.

The emergence of these new technologies have limitations. According to Mason, Traoré and Woungang (2016), three positives can be attributed to the new emerging biometric technologies: reduced operational costs because less resources are used in authentication and identification; reduced time in identifying criminals and hence an effective judicial and law enforcement system; and improved security because threats can be detected from far. However, apart from these positives, there are limitations of these new and existing systems. Firstly, the usage and environment can affect the measurements which means the accuracy of the recognition can be in doubt. Secondly, the systems are not accurate 100 percent (Mason, Traoré, & Woungang, 2016). Thirdly, some of these systems cannot be reset once they have been compromised.

References.

Gates, K. A. (2011). Our biometric future: Facial recognition technology and the culture of surveillance. NYU Press.

Jain, A. K., Nandakumar, K., & Ross, A. (2016). 50 years of biometric research: Accomplishments, challenges, and opportunities. Pattern Recognition Letters, 79, 80-105.

Jain, A. K., & Kumar, A. (2012). Biometric recognition: an overview. In Second generation biometrics: The ethical, legal and social context (pp. 49-79). Springer Netherlands.

Mason, J. E., Traoré, I., & Woungang, I. (2016). Gait Biometric Recognition. In Machine Learning Techniques for Gait Biometric Recognition (pp. 9-35). Springer International Publishing.

National Research Council, & Whither Biometrics Committee. (2010). Biometric recognition: challenges and opportunities. National Academies Press.