Ten basic concepts and basic principles of biometrics

To master a subject, the first thing to do is to have a mastery of its basic concepts and principles, and then repeatedly think about its connotation and extension. It is not a simple matter to explain a concept clearly, it may not only use the concept of the subject, but also restore it outside the subject; for example, if we are studying economics, then explain To understand the theory of interest, it is not simply to say that "interest is the remuneration obtained by the owner of the funds for lending the funds", and it must be restored beyond economic terms. For example, Fisher's interest theory "not only does not care about inflation, risk, or transaction costs, but more importantly, it does not care about currency. He believes that in a society where there is no money, goods are exchanged for goods, and interest still exists. The existence of interest does not need to be Currency, but there needs to be a market, and the exchange of goods is the market. "This returns to the original concept of the concept-the market. When explaining the market, we must restore it to economics. Of course, after crossing the boundaries of economics, we do not need to explain any more, because this is beyond the scope of economics.

Although whether biometrics can become a subject is personally considered to be highly doubtful, personally, it is still necessary to grasp relevant knowledge and clear up the basic concepts.

The following are the ten basic concepts related to biometrics that I preliminarily listed. It is inevitable that there will be a miss. The explanation here is also difficult to reach a real depth, but I just hope to arouse everyone's interest in thinking:

Biometrics (biological authentication):
Biometric Identification (Biometric Identification Technology): is the use of human biological characteristics for identity authentication. It is based on (1) the biological characteristics of human beings are different (2) these two points that can be measured or can be automatically identified and verified. Human biological characteristics include physiological characteristics or behavior patterns. Physiological characteristics include hand shape, fingerprint, face shape, iris, retina, pulse, auricle, etc., and behavioral characteristics include signature, voice, and key press strength.

Question: 1. Should biometrics be more called person identification or human identification? 2. There are many commonalities or differences between different biometric technologies. Should these technologies be completely independent?

Fingerprint recognition:

Fingerprint recognition is a technology that uses human fingerprint characteristics to authenticate human identities. Among all biometric technologies, fingerprint technology is the most mature and widely used.

Question: 1. Is fingerprint recognition technology really mature? How should those who cannot collect fingerprints be included in the relevant system? 2. In addition to fingerprint recognition, what recognition technology is most promising?

algorithm

Algorithm is the term of computer software, mainly refers to the specific steps and methods required to complete a task. That is to say, given the initial state or input data, after a finite number of operations of the computer program, the desired result can be obtained. Algorithms often contain repeated steps and some comparisons or logical judgments. If an algorithm is flawed or not suitable for a problem, executing this algorithm will not solve the problem.

The algorithm mentioned in the field of biometrics is essentially the application of software algorithms in the field. Taking fingerprint recognition as an example, its core algorithms include fingerprint matching algorithm, fuzzy fingerprint image processing algorithm, fingerprint feature classification, positioning and extraction algorithm , And fingerprint stitching algorithm.

Question: 1. Should the algorithm be the core of biometric technology? 2. Chinese companies have frequently won good rankings in the fingerprint algorithm competition. Does this mean that we have reached world standards in this regard?

Fingerprint sensor

In general, a sensor is a device for measuring and converting the measured signal into a certain amount of easy-to-process electrical signal output with a certain accuracy. The fingerprint sensor is a device that measures the electrical signal of the finger. At present, there are different types of fingerprint sensors, such as optical type and crystal capacitive type.

Question: What are the main technical challenges for fingerprint sensors for Chinese companies?

Identity authentication (identification)

To put it bluntly, it is a way of authenticating a person who wishes to obtain a certain identity through a certain method or means. For example, you can verify whether you are a legal user of the system by ID card or account / password.

Question: How many current identity authentication technologies are there? What are the classification criteria?

AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Identification System)

AFIS (Automaed Fingerprint Idenification System) refers to the computer processing the input fingerprint image to achieve fingerprint classification, positioning, extracting morphological and detailed features, and then performing fingerprint comparison and recognition based on the extracted features.

Question: AFIS has traditionally referred to fingerprint identification systems in the police field. Is there still a need for the term today?

information security

Taken together, information security is to ensure the effectiveness and security of electronic information. Information security involves information confidentiality (Confidentiality), integrity (Integrity), availability (Availability), controllability (Controllability). Confidentiality is a passive attack against opponents to ensure that information is not leaked to unauthorized persons. Integrity is to counter active adversary attacks and prevent unauthorized tampering of information. Usability is to ensure that information and information systems are indeed used by authorized users. Controllability is to implement security monitoring of information and information systems.

Question: 1. Should the application of biometrics be focused on information security? 2. Should information security technology be used to command biometrics or biometrics to control information security in the future?

encryption

Encryption technology mainly refers to a technical method adopted to achieve the purpose of protecting data from leakage, mainly to transform important data into garbled (encrypted) transmission, and then use the same or different means to restore (decrypt) . The encryption technology includes two elements: algorithm and key. The algorithm is the step of combining ordinary text (or understandable information) with a series of numbers (keys) to generate incomprehensible ciphertext. The key is an algorithm used to encode and decode data.

Question: 1. Is the file encryption function necessary for fingerprint recognition applications? 2. Does its existence mean that a simple fingerprint recognition application is too simple to meet user needs?

Fingerprint Time Attendance

The meaning of fingerprint attendance is very clear: use fingerprint instead of swiping card to record employee's attendance. The reason why fingerprint attendance is listed as one of the ten basic concepts of biometrics is because of its importance. It is said that fingerprint attendance has occupied 60% of the entire market for fingerprint recognition in China, and fingerprint recognition accounts for 90% of the market Share. The fingerprint attendance system is a management system that utilizes a fingerprint reader and a computer system to realize attendance registration and attendance management.

Question: Why is fingerprint attendance the most successful biometric application? What aspects does it meet the needs of users?

Rejection rate and false recognition rate

When the computer processes the fingerprint, it only involves some limited information of the fingerprint, and the comparison algorithm is not an exact match, and the result cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurate. An important indicator of a specific application of a fingerprint recognition system is the recognition rate. It is mainly composed of two parts, the rejection rate (FRR) and the false judgment rate (FAR). We can adjust these two values ​​according to different uses. FRR and FAR are inversely proportional. Express this number as 0-1.0 or as a percentage. ROC (Receiver Operating Curve)-The curve gives the relationship between FAR and FRR.

Questions: 1. Should a standard be established for FAR and FER? 2. How many of the nominal FER and FAR values ​​of biometric products are real? Who will test its authenticity?