A single tap on my phone’s home button immediately unlocks my phone. My fingerprint has been identified, granting me access to my phone within seconds. This means never having to deal with the hassle of typing in my passcode.

Or, at least, it means saving me a few seconds that I would have normally wasted trying to type in my passcode. This kind of fingerprint detection is really useful when I’m trying to access my phone’s camera or any of its other features, for that matter, quickly.

You probably don’t think too much about the technology that’s involved in making this action possible. That a tiny sensor has the ability to recognize your fingerprint, knowing that it’s your fingerprint and no one else’s.

This is biometrics. And it doesn’t stop at fingerprint detection…

So, what exactly is biometrics?

According to Merriam-Webster’s definition of the term, Biometrics is the measurement and analysis of unique physical or behavioral characteristics (such as fingerprint or voice patterns), especially as a means of verifying personal identity.

To some, it may seem like the ultimate way of ensuring that your personal information won’t be accessed by anyone but you. There’s no reason to worry about someone compromising your highly sensitive information or expensive devices.

Biometrics technology is advancing every day and is making it easier to live our lives without the fear of someone stealing our very personal information, like our credit card info.

Apple introduced its usable biometric identification with its home button fingerprint sensor in 2013. This is what has really created the demand for biometrics in more devices and has resulted in the technology’s fast advancement.

Currently, Google is working on its new Abacus Project. This technology would work to monitor your speech patterns along with how you walk and type in order to confirm that you’re really the person on the other end of the smartphone.

Then there’s MasterCard, which is working on using your heartbeat data to verify purchases. Imagine not having to pull out a credit card or smartphone to verify your purchases, but instead, having your heartbeat confirm that it’s really you.

Even other apps are working on using vascular patterns in the user’s eyes or a person’s specific gait to verify identities.

How Secure Is It?

This technology uses your unique characteristics that can’t be replicated. However, this technology isn’t a new concept. Police have been fingerprinting for over 100 years and have been using digital biometric databases since the 1980s. But it wasn’t until Apple put fingerprint sensors in a more convenient and accessible spot that this technology started getting attention.

Experts want to reassure us that biometrics is secure — that it would be a lot harder to compromise a person’s personal information because another user would have to put a lot of effort into trying to replicate a person’s unique characteristics. But there are some people who beg to differ…

Alvaro Bedoya, a professor of law at Georgetown University, is one of those people. He argues:

A password is inherently private. The whole point of a password is that you don’t tell anyone about it. A credit card is inherently private in the sense that you only have one credit card…

I know what your fingerprint looks like if we have a drink and you leave your fingerprints on the pint glass.

Biometrics is inherently public, which is the big difference here. Essentially, your password is publicly displayed for everyone to see and possibly take advantage of.

Biometrics and National Security

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), especially its Customs and Border Protection agency, is using biometrics to stay updated with and to better track the immigration records of those who enter the U.S. every day.

The DHS is planning to add iris scanners and 170 million foreigner fingerprints to the FBI’s national database. A new biometric entry-exit system will be used for accurately knowing who is entering and leaving the U.S. And adding fingerprinting, iris-scanning, and facial-recognition technology to the process of verifying an identity of a person will help national security.

The Office of Biometric Identity Management, a division of DHS, says it has already stopped “thousands of people who were ineligible to enter the United States.” Biometrics has been helping departments at both state and national levels in verifying that people are who they say they are.

This technology is truly amazing. The advancements that have been made over the past few years have been incredible, and I’m very intrigued by what new technologies we’ll see in the future for both individual and national security biometrics.

Until next time,

Jennifer Clark
Pro Trader Today