- [Instructor] Biometrics provide a means
of identifying someone based upon one or more
physical characteristics of that person.
They often serve as both identification
and authentication mechanisms and fall into a category
of authentication factors known as something you are.
Good biometric authentication techniques
balance the difficulty of use with a degree
of security that they provide.
Effective systems provide easy enrollment,
the initial setup of a user may require
administrator assistance but it is accomplished
fairly quickly and with a minimum of fuss.
They also provide low false acceptance rates.
They don't admit unauthorized people inadvertently.
At the same time, they have low false rejection rates.
They don't turn away people who should be admitted.
And finally, they have low intrusiveness.
They pass the creepiness test with users.
There are a wide variety of biometric
authentication techniques in use today.
Fingerprint readers are commonly found on laptop computers,
smartphones, tablets, and similar devices.
The user completes a self-enrollment process
when they setup their account
and the fingerprint serves as both an identification
and authentication tool.
They're well liked because they have low
false acceptance and rejection rates
and are not usually seen as overly intrusive.
Eye scans examine either the color patterns of the iris
or the blood vessel patterns in the retina.
Many users dislike eye scans because they feel intrusive
so they are not commonly used outside
of high security physical buildings.
Voiceprint identification asks users
to repeat a phrase and compares their voices
to a stored sample.
Voiceprint identification is subject to replay attacks
where an attacker records the user's voice
so they are not commonly used unless combined
with other authentication tools.
Facial recognition technology scans a user's face
and compares it to a stored image.
Many users consider this technology pretty creepy.
In the past, facial recognition technology
had a high false rejection rate
but the technology has improved over the years
and is becoming more common.
Biometric identification is increasing in popularity
as users turn away from the inconvenience
of identifying and authenticating themselves
via a keyboard.
As authentication tools, biometrics are much harder to fool
than passwords and other knowledge based approaches.