Will 2012 Be The Year Biometrics Go Mainstream?

With 2012 already upon us, it’s time to think about whether biometrics will go mainstream this year. By mainstream, we mean used at ATM’s, homes, airports and hotel check-ins. Although some of these measures might already be taking place, it is within a very small scale. So will biometrics dominate our security world in 2012? To take a closer look, let’s look at a prediction made by a major technology manufacturer – IBM.

A cash machine with a biometric fingerprint scanner

They believe, that speech and facial recognition technologies will surpass passwords and card security access in our daily lives, because “Each person has a unique biological identity and behind that is data” of course..a very true statement, but is the technology that encrypts and stores the data advanced enough to make it mainstream this year?

Another concern towards the mainstream attack of biometric systems, is privacy concerns. While we hate to bring this topic to light, simply because it’s incredibly futile, there are still masses of people in society that believe that fingerprint software, facial scans or retina images are able to be stolen or used against us to steal our money, possessions and in extreme cases of conspiracy our lives! Privacy concerns should be de-promoted to the bottom of the list of problems associated with biometric systems going mainstream.

This is why..Biometric technology has been created to store data which cannot be manipulated to reproduce the original image that was registered on the given security system. The ‘image’ that is stored is in fact a series of numbers and codes that only the algorithm itself can understand. Therefore, in the very rare case of anyone ever cracking the code, advances would probably already have been made in the technology to deem the hackers work a waste of time. So don’t worry about privacy.

The next argument is the technology itself. This is perhaps the most important factor. The reason being, will the biometric security system be able to store tens of thousands of fingerprints, facial or iris scans? At the moment, on one to one systems, where the fingerprint or otherwise is matched to another print, a 20,000 limit is its cap. On 1:N systems where the individual must present a card or password as well as the fingerprint at the moment is approximately 100,000. Therefore, is the biometric technology advanced enough to hold everyone at the ATM machine, hotel or music concert?

Taking all of these arguments into consideration and baring in mind that China are already test running biometrics on ATM machines, it really would be a magnificent achievement if Europe and America make biometrics mainstream in 2012. The reason we believe it won’t happen is because of people’s misconceptions on biometrics. Society would need to be well informed before any advancements are made to store data as such, and then it would be up to the Government and technological advances. Perhaps steps will be taken this year so that in a few years time, biometric systems will not only be a form of access control but a form of securing and protecting ourselves and our identities.

To find out more on Ievo and our biometric range, visit www.ievoreader.com