Monica Frances T. Hao ITETHIC
00A
Book: Cyber Ethics
Chapter 5.6: Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity
Library Reference: N/A
Quote:
Authentication by biometric verification is becoming increasingly common in corporate and public security systems, consumer electronics and point of sale applications. In addition to security, the driving force behind biometric verification has been convenience.
Learning Expectation:
In this chapter of the book “Cyber Ethics” I want to learn what does Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity is all about. How will this chapter help me in appreciating the Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity? I also want to learn in this chapter if what does the Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity means? How does it help the industry? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
Review:
Biometrics refers to methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In information technology, in particular, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance.
The main operations a system can perform are enrollment and test. During the enrollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. During the test, biometric information is detected and compared with the stored information. Note that it is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric system is to be robust. The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and our system; it has to acquire all the necessary data.
Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired. The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input, to use some kind of normalization, etc. In the third block features needed are extracted. This step is an important step as the correct features need to be extracted and the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of all the characteristics extracted from the source, in the optimal size to allow for adequate identifiability.
Lessons Learned:
· Biometrics
· Characteristics and types of biometrics
· Identifying biometric identity
· Virtual identities
5 integrative questions:
1. What is biometrics?
2. What is its relevance to IT?
3. What are the types of biometrics?
4. What are biometric identities?
5. What does biometric verification do?
