History and uses of Biometrics

HISTORY AND USES OF BIOMETRICS

By
Marie C. Smith
Gerard Beatty
SEC310
March 10, 2014

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Table of Contents
I. First uses of Biometrics
Handprint recognition---------------------------------------------------------------------------3
Facial recognition-------------------------------------------------------------------------------3
Ancient finger prints-----------------------------------------------------------------------------4
II. Types of Biometrics
A. Physiological--------------------------------------------------------------------------------4
DNA fingerprinting------------------------------------------------------------------------5
IRIS Recognition--------- -----------------------------------------------------------------5
B. Behavioral------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6
Voice biometrics----------------------------------------------------------------------------6
Keystroke dynamics------------------------------------------------------------------------8
III. Commercial and governmental uses of biometrics
A. Commercial---------------------------------------------------------------------------------10
Secured internet access------------------------------------------------------------------10
ATM---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------11
B. Governmental uses------------------------------------------------------------------------12
Access control--------------------------------------------------------------------------12
IV. Illustrations-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------14
V. works cited-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------15

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HISTORY AND USES OF BIOMETRICS

Biometrics which is a Greek term for bio-life and metrics-measure has been used since caveman time on cave paintings by putting a handprint next to the painting to distinguish the artist so everyone knows who painted it and later in in china parents hand printed and foot printed their children to identify while and Egyptian merchants and traders were identified by physiological descriptions to tell who were the trusted traders of successful transactions and those new to the marketplace. Today biometrics is the use of both physiological and behavioral sciences to identify and secure work sites that are critical to the ways we bank and do business.
Biometrics has been used for identification and through the years has changed to secure important papers and even our identities and workplaces

Figure 1 hand print in cave drawing (Hitchcock, 2013)

The first known uses of biometrics are in the form of hand prints clear back in the beginnings of the human race where one individual distinguished his cave paintings from others by placing a handprint next to it and are felt to “have acted as an un forgeable signature” (Brad
Wing, 2006)of its originator as seen in figure 1. The next recorded instance is in Babylonia; merchants recorded their daily transactions on clay tablets and marked them with their fingerprints as a binding seal, later the Spanish explorer Joao de Barros who wrote that the
Chinese parents were stamping children’s palm prints and footprints on rice paper with ink to
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identify the young children from one another. “This is one of the most primitive known cases of biometrics in use and is still being used today”. (questbiometrics, 2005) History teaches us that during the 14th century in china merchants and traders were identified by other merchants by their physical descriptors to differentiate between trusted traders of known reputations and previous successful transactions to those new to the market.” (Osborn, 2005) during this time because of the rapid growth of the population the recognition of the face or features of another individual was not enough and a researcher by the name of Alphonso Bertillon anthropometrics to be