Cave paintings created some 30,000 years ago include hand-prints which are thought to identify the artist. Babylonian merchants included finger prints on clay tablets perhaps to identify those involved in particular transactions. In early Egypt physical descriptions were appended to the names of traders also presumably as a means of indisputable identification. Hand and foot-prints were used in China about 600 years ago to identify children and this method is still used today.
Modern biometrics started in the mid-19th century with Bertillon’s anthropometrics and his system was called Bertillonage.
Edward Henry
The use of fingerprints by police started in Asia, S. America and Europe. By the late 19th century systems for recording, storing and retrieving finger prints were being established. The first such robust system of classification was developed in Bengal, India by Azizul Haque for Edward Henry who was the Inspector General of Police. The Henry System caught on and variations are still in use today.
Development of modern day biometric systems took off in the second half of the 20th century and with the advent of computers has exploded since the 1990’s.
Face recognition
But a new report by the National Research Council warns that no single trait has been identified that is stable and distinctive across all groups.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/naos-bit092410.php
Biometric systems — designed to automatically recognize individuals based on biological and behavioral traits such as fingerprints, palm prints, or voice or face recognition — are “inherently fallible,” says a new report by the National Research Council, and no single trait has been identified that is stable and distinctive across all groups.
“For nearly 50 years, the promise of biometrics has outpaced the application of the technology,” said Joseph N. Pato, chair of the committee that wrote the report and distinguished technologist at Hewlett-Packard’s HP Laboratories, Palo Alto, Calif. “While some biometric systems can be effective for specific tasks, they are not nearly as infallible as their depiction in popular culture might suggest. Bolstering the science is essential to gain a complete understanding of the strengths and limitations of these systems.”
Biometric systems are increasingly used to regulate access to facilities, information, and other rights or benefits, but questions persist about their effectiveness as security or surveillance mechanisms. The systems provide “probabilistic results,” meaning that confidence in results must be tempered by an understanding of the inherent uncertainty in any given system, the report says. It notes that when the likelihood of an imposter is rare, even systems with very accurate sensors and matching capabilities can have a high false-alarm rate. Biometric characteristics may vary over an individual’s lifetime due to age, stress, disease, or other factors. Technical issues regarding calibration of sensors, degradation of data, and security breaches also contribute to variability in these systems.
The study was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, with assistance from the National Science Foundation. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.
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