Technology

Biometric Technology: A Brief History

Biometrics measures and statistically analyze people’s unique physical characteristics, mainly used to identify individuals under surveillance. The purpose of this technology is to authenticate people by their intrinsic physical or behavioral traits accurately. Moreover, biometrics is the most suitable way to identify and establish individuals in a reliable manner through unique biological characteristics. The term biometric came from two Greek words – bio means life and metric, meaning to measure.

In the 1960s, modern biometric technology developed into high-tech scanners that can read bio-makers with a hundred percent accuracy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) funded fingerprint identification in 1969, allowing the study of minute points to help map unique patterns and ridges of fingerprints.

By the time in the 1990s, biometric technology boomed when the National Security Agency established Biometric Consortium. The Department of Defense (DoD) partnered with Defense Advanced Research Products Agency (DARPA) to fund face recognition algorithms for commercial markets. Also, Lockheed Martin purchased an automated fingerprint identification system for the FBI.

In 2000, West Virginia University instituted its first Bachelor’s degree in Biometric Systems Engineering and Computer Engineering. The reason behind establishing European Biometric Forum was to address fragmentation and market adoption barriers in biometric technology. In this era, the world accepted face recognition as a biometric authentication method for passports and other Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs). Also, the United States immigration department used a biometrics authentication algorithm to speed up visa applications for travelers to increase security. Furthermore, biometric data like fingerprints, voice samples, and iris images were used for tracking and identifying national security threats.

After 60 years, biometric authentication was made more accessible to the public and was then commercialized. It had gained force since smartphones already have scanning sensors as part of their features. Majority of the mobile phones today have integrated biometric fingerprint scanners for more convenience in authenticating users’ identity to access their smartphones. Later on, some mobile phone brands like Apple and Samsung already have face recognition features to unlock the phone quickly.

When discussing the future of biometric technology, groups and standards bodies like FIDO2 key can recognize biometrics and help control as access barriers have fallen away. Biometric security and biology-based technology today are accepted by many with regards to ensuring data safety and security.

Since biometrics authentication algorithm continues to dominate the advancement of automated systems today, LoginIDInc also authenticates payments without accessing passwords with FIDO web authentication standard or FIDO WebAuthn. In that way, paying no longer needs to input many details about you for more convenience.

To learn more about biometric technology, you can visit www.loginid.io.