Title: The biometric landscape - towards a sustainable biometric terminology framework

Authors: Bobby L. Tait

Addresses: College of Science, Engineering and Technology, University of South Africa, Private Bag X6, Florida, 1710, South Africa

Abstract: Biometric technology is by no means a new technology (Woodward and Orleans, 2004). Authenticating people based on their biometric traits have been used before technology adopted biometrics as a mechanism to authenticate a person. However, various aspects that shape the landscape of biometric technology are often overlooked. Many research papers focus on the fact that biometric technology can be spoofed using various complex approaches (Matsumoto et al., 2002). However, biometric technology has a number of role players that must be considered. Many examples exist of companies implementing biometric technology for authentication. Only to learn later those certain aspects preclude the successful implementation of biometric technology. This paper discusses a number of aspects that form part of the biometric landscape which should be contemplated whenever biometric technology is considered for a sustainable biometric solution. Due to the various formats that biometrics can be presented this paper also introduces a framework to standardise the terminology used for biometrics.

Keywords: biometrics; security; biometric terminology; sustainability; liveness testing; biometric technology; authentication.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESDF.2014.063110

International Journal of Electronic Security and Digital Forensics, 2014 Vol.6 No.2, pp.147 - 156

Received: 23 Oct 2013
Accepted: 13 Feb 2014
Published online: 30 Jul 2014 *

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