Automated biometrics-based personal identification
Weicheng Shen, Tieniu Tan · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1999
Conventionally, we identify ourselves and gain access by physically carrying passports, keys, badges, tokens, and access cards or by remembering passwords, secret codes, and personal identification numbers (PINs). Unfortunately, passports, keys, badges, tokens, and access cards can be lost, duplicated, stolen, or forgotten; and passwords, secret codes, and PINs can easily be forgotten, compromised, shared, or observed. Such loopholes or deficiencies of conventional personal identification techniques have caused major problems to all concerned. For example, hackers often disrupt computer networks; credit card fraud is estimated at $2 billion per year worldwide; and in the USA, welfare fraud (by double dippers) is believed to be in excess of $4 billion a year. Robust, reliable, and foolproof personal identification solutions must be sought to address the deficiencies of conventional techniques.