The success of a business or service provider depends on the ability to identify the customer conveniently and read users’ profiles accurately. Businesses also need to safeguard online transactions to prevent third parties from appropriating and misusing private data. The universal dependence on usernames, passwords, OPTs, and SMS created more problems than it was solving. Enter Biometrics.
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What Does Biometrics Do, And What Is Its Future As An Authentication Tool?
There’s no one else in the world, not even an identical twin, with the same features as you. Certain biological traits can play a significant role in accurately authenticating your identity.
Biometrics, driven by advances in sensors and algorithms, maps your facial structure, voice modulation, speech pattern, the color and design of the iris, and the ridges, lines, and loops of your fingerprints to discern patterns and analyze the biological markers that make you unique.
Software experts researching KYC & identity verification by Passbase believe that Biometrics is the endgame that changes the safety-security paradigm forever in the universe of user authentication and verification. Biometrics is like Thor bringing his Mjölnir (Hammer) to a fistfight – the result is a foregone conclusion.
Industry experts estimate that accumulated losses through cybercrime may surpass US 10.5 trillion by 2025. New-age technologies like Biometrics are at the frontiers, weaponizing companies and customers against cyber disruptors. Biometrics unlocks biological traits that identify users (legitimate and criminal) whoever, whatever, and wherever they may be.
1. Physiological And Behavioral Biometric Techniques Underpinning User Authentication
The Domain Of Physiological Biometrics – The Mapping Of Physical Bodily Traits
Fingerprint Recognition
Fingerprints are lasting impressions in the form of skin ridges, whorls, and loops located on the palm side of fingers and thumbs at the tips. Three essential features make the fingerprint a deciding factor in identifying an individual.
- The print impression remains unchanged throughout life.
- The pattern of the ridges is distinguishable as distinct groupings.
- And, no two fingers (and prints) are the same, even in one individual.
The Palm Vein Scan
An infrared light scans the unique architecture of the veins inside the palm. The millions of data points captured in the process undergo encryption coding, which transforms into your Biometric ID. Unlike other biometric features visible externally, the palm vein is an internal and more accurate biometric tool.
Facial recognition
In this biometric, facial features are automatically mapped from photos, videos, or a live recording and matched with profiles in the database to identify people.
The spatial arrangement and positioning of the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, jawline, and the unique way they come together, are measured.
Human eyes see a face only to remember it for a moment or forget it forever. Biometrics sees data that advanced algorithms analyze, data that can be stored and retrieved as required.
Iris Scanning vs. Retina scanning
Iris recognition and Retina scanning are ocular biometric technologies that study and analyze the physiological characteristics of the Iris and Retina that make an individual unique and identifiable. But they are different.
The retinal scan sends a beam of light through the eye that highlights the maze of blood capillaries crisscrossing the retina – believe it or not, the alignment of blood capillaries is unique to each person. Retinal scanning is invasive.
The Iris scan maps the tissue surrounding the eye’s pupil and can be done from a distance, using a camera, without contact.
Both mapping techniques morph into statistical models that accurately identify the person. But because of Retinal scanning’s intrusive nature, it has lower acceptance as a KYC solution.
2. The Domain Of Behavioral Biometrics – The Mapping Of Physical and Cognitive Behavior
This significant biometric intervention analyzes and stores information relating to the user’s actions for discerning patterns of behavior that help identify an individual.
Voice recognition and verification
In this biometric, voice modulation and speech patterns are the biological factors identifying the user. Voice recognition perceives what the speaker is saying, whereas voice verification identifies the person who is speaking.
Voice analysis becomes the authentication gateway for many services like call centers, in-mobile applications, mobile digital assistants, online chatbots, IoT devices, and physical access barriers set up in buildings.
Voice biometrics overcomes the frustration we endure with complex login protocols and stolen credentials. The spoken phrase identifies the user much faster than the login time using a PIN.
Keystroke Dynamics
An intriguing aspect is that you have a typing DNA that identifies you with 95 percent accuracy. The biometric interprets patterns in your typing rhythm and records the time you hover over a key, how hard you press, how quickly you release each key, and the time spent using passwords and logins. The algorithm consistently perceives the gender of the user.
When keystroke dynamics combine with user ID/password credentials, you get a more secure 2FA model that identifies people with higher accuracy.
Handwritten signature
This biometric measures the dynamics of your handwriting experience to create a “Graphic Image” of your signature that is unique to you. The biometric software records the pressure you apply and your handwriting style, digitizing the data and mapping it to identify you with 99 percent accuracy.
The challenge to this tool’s accuracy is the bewildering variation in handwriting type, spatial differencing in letters, and the subtle changes in the writing style that come through aging and physical disabilities. So, this model works best if done on-premise and in association with a user ID that creates a 2FA advantage.
Conclusion
Now you know what it takes for companies to authenticate and verify the users that come knocking at their online service counters. The era of biometrics has genuinely begun with Fintechs digging deep and researching minutely to innovate fascinating biometric tools more accurate and more versatile than ever before.
Businesses now possess tech tools that weaponize them in the war against cybercriminals. These are tools that authenticate and verify customers and the codebreakers with equal finesse.
If you wish to dominate the cybersecurity arena, this is the moment. The ball is in your court – give it the double-fisted backhand it deserves, and then It’s Game, Set, Match!
