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Your body is now your password
Your finger is the key that unlocks your car and starts the ignition. Your eyes are your bankcard to withdraw cash. Your hand is the security software that protects your network from intrusions and fraud. Your face opens the door to your workplace.
Ripped straight from the pages of a sci-fi novel or blockbuster movie, biometric technologies - such as fingerprint verification, iris and retinal scanning, hand geometry analysis, or facial feature scanning - are poised to become the next-generation form of security. Transcending mere technology, biometrics combines high-tech gadgetry and no-tech biology to create a viable solution to the problem of eroded personal and corporate security.
Government institutions, eminent high-tech companies, and top-secret laboratories have used biometrics for decades. Until recently, however, biometric identification devices have been prohibitively expensive. Now, with high demand and rapid advances in technology, biometric solutions have become affordable and biometrics as an industry has been given a mighty push into mainstream living.
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Will that be cash, credit, or finger?
A full 6% of American businesses now use some form of biometrics. At the West Seattle Thriftway, shoppers can pay for their groceries by placing their index finger on a scanner that verifies data against a database of enrolled customers. McDonalds has tested using biometric payment, Qantas Airways is developing a self-serve check-in using fingerprint, facial, and iris scanning recognition devices, and ING Direct has implemented optional fingerprint identity verification for online banking.
In all of these cases, enrollment is strictly voluntary, and designed to decrease fraud and provide customers with a fast, convenient, and easy option. Wary customers are still able to pay the 'old-fashioned' way. In order for biometric solutions to be widely accepted by the public, they must be instantaneous, undiscriminating, and non-intrusive.
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Using biometric identification methods in your personal life can be a valuable tool for you. Offenders perpetrate identity theft, a problem affecting hundreds of thousands of victims each year, by accessing your personal information such as your SSN/SIN or mother's maiden name and using the information to
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impersonate you to gain credit, employment, or loans.
If your fingerprint data were stored on your driver's license, your identity would be safer. If your credit card and bankcard stored biometric identification, your money would be safer. If your passport contained eye-scan verification data, our country and our freedom would be safer.
Using biometric identification methods in the office can also be a valuable tool for businesses. A survey of 503 large corporations and government agencies conducted by the Computer Security Institute (CSI) found that in the past year, 80% suffered moderate to severe
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financial losses due to financial fraud and loss of proprietary information, mainly from outside sources attacking their networks.
CSI Director Patricia Rapalus stated, "There is much more illegal and unauthorized activity going on in cyberspace than [reported]…. Incidents are widespread, costly and commonplace."
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Practical applications in the workplace
There are many uses for biometric technology in the workplace. However, take time to weigh your options—biometrics is a wunderkind still going through growing pains. In an ideal world with ideal circumstances, biometric technology would be an ideal stand-alone solution. However, low light levels, aging, dirt, and device wear all contribute to a relatively low level of inaccurate readings. To counteract this in high-security business applications, layer two or more biometric methods or supplement existing security with a biometric method.
The benefit of biometrics is that the software and devices are recognizing a distinct person instead of a password or key, making duplication and fraud extremely difficult. Following are examples of how you could implement biometrics in your workplace.
Current application: Password to login to intranet.
Biometric supplement: Password plus fingerprint scan device on keyboard to verify identity.
Current application: Keys or codes to enter doors.
Biometric replacement: Smart card ID plus iris scan for entry.
Current application: Network protected by a firewall.
Biometric supplement: Network protected by a firewall, plus a required identifying facial scan.
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By using traditional methods blended with new technology or layering biometrics, you can greatly reduce the risk of unauthorized access leading to the devastation of financial or informational loss.
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Privacy of stored data
A major concern that has arisen in the face of increased biometric use is the danger of your data being stolen and duplicated to impersonate you - which would bring us back to current problems. The issue, while valid in concept, has been greatly exaggerated. Theft and duplication of information is prevented through the method by which biometric devices gather and store information.
Your data is not recorded as a traditional snapshot; it is compiled into a mathematical abstraction, a string of numbers, then compared against your last entry. Only certain necessary bits of data are stored and compared for identification—the rest of the information is discarded. Because of this, and the proprietary algorithms encrypting the data, it would be virtually impossible to replicate your fingerprint or other biometric identifier from this data.
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Two sides: Do biometrics cross consumer privacy boundaries?
Yes.
There is a possibility of 'function creep', or the potential for abuse of the technology in areas for which it was not designed. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) have also spoken out on the danger of 'Big Brother syndrome' - as in government officials using biometric device data to track dissidents or criminals through their purchasing habits. In addition, use of biometric devices might cause discrimination against the 5-10% of the population who would have trouble using them - amputees for example.
No.
The International Biometric Industry Association (IBIA) has set out technical and legal proposals to protect privacy of information collected. Information will be kept by individual businesses and only used for identification - government will not be able to access the information and there is and will not be a centralized database. Consumers can choose to accept the convenience and security that biometrics offers, while others can opt out of using the new technology. Businesses can avoid discrimination by placing devices at lower levels for wheelchair access and retaining options from which employees or consumers can choose.
Critics, even the ACLU, are not opposed to using biometrics for identification purposes providing that the information and technology remains strictly controlled and regulated. Ideally, both the goal of privacy and the goal of security will be reached without breaching either.
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The end of wallets as we know them
So, regardless of your personal views on this subject, biometrics is due to become a large and integral part of our lives. It will take years for widespread use (look how long DVDs have taken) but will eventually become commonplace.
We will look back on 2002 and reminisce about the days that hackers could affect us, our information and identities were up for grabs, and we all carried around pockets full of cold change, uncomfortable keyrings, and bulky plastic-filled wallets.
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