Biometrics

 


Jack Webb, as Sergeant Joe Friday, implored “Just the facts, ma’am, nothing but the facts.”

The fact is that no two people share fingerprints. There are records of fingerprints dating to Ancient Babylonia where they were used as signatures in clay while the Chinese used ink-on-paper to identify their children. As for Detective Friday, fingerprints weren’t used in criminology until 1858.

Today, identification is more sophisticated with several human characteristics revolutionizing business and security. According to Brett Beranek, “The future of business lies in highly intelligent and automated transactions and smart, seamless customer interactions.”

Enter the field called biometrics. Computer technology makes it possible to search databases throughout the web to trace human characteristics more revealing than the image of an inked digit. The industry created requires both hardware and software to keep records of scans that will use the iris as well as facial recognition. While the face can be altered by plastic surgery, the iris is impenetrable to alteration, at least for the present.

Imagine an ATM that recognizes you without a card or PIN, emergency response improved with facial recognition, and no more punching the time clock because the scanner recognizes you coming to work or leaving. Biometrics has already earned a huge following with fitness trackers and intuitive devices.

There will always be uneasiness about privacy and security as artificial intelligence promises to open new opportunities for fraud, and social media has already removed much face-to-face interaction. Have you already lost friends to the smart phone?

 

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