Guide to Biometrics (Springer Professional Computing) (Hardcover)

~ Ruud Bolle (Author), Jonathan Connell (Author), Sharanthchandra Pankanti (Author), Nalini Ratha (Author), Andrew Senior (Author) "Reliable authorization and authentication are becoming necessary for many everyday actions (or applications), be it boarding an aircraft, performing a financial transaction, or picking up..." (more)
Key Phrases: False Match, False Negative, Cumulative Match Curve (more...)

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Product Description

In today's globally connected world there is increasing interest in using biometrics (personal physical attributes such as fingerprints, facial images, voice patterns, iris codes, and hand geometry) for human verification, identification, and "screening" applications. Biometrics are attractive because they cannot be "forgotten," are not easily stolen, and provide a direct, undeniable link between a user and a transaction.

This is a complete technical guide aimed at presenting the core ideas that underlie the area of biometrics. It explains the definition and measurement of performance and examines the factors involved in choosing between different biometrics. It also delves into practical applications and covers a number of topics critical for successful system integration. These include recognition accuracy, total cost of ownership, acquisition and processing speed, intrinsic and system security, privacy and legal requirements, and user acceptance.

Features & Benefits:

* State-of-the-art coverage of biometric theory, research, and implementation

* Provides a broad orientation for a wide class of readers, yet has tightly integrated topical organization

* Debunks myths and candidly confronts problems associated with biometrics research

* Details relevant issues in choosing between biometrics, as well as defining and measuring performance

* Defines and explains how to measure the performance of both verification and identification systems

* Addresses challenges in managing tradeoffs between security and convenience

This detailed resource is an extensive survey of the principles, methods, and technologies used in biometric authentication systems. Security and financial administrators, computer science professionals, and biometric systems developers will all benefit from an enhanced understanding of this important technology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 364 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (November 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387400893
• ISBN-13: 978-0387400891
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #912,794 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great general textbook on Biometrics, December 4, 2005

By	calvinnme "Texan refugee" (Fredericksburg, Va) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This book is a general textbook on biometric fundamentals as opposed to discussions on specific biometric measurements - fingerprint, iris, face recognition etc. Rather than just chatter on endlessly like an academic journal, the author keeps things interesting with numerical insights and practical suggestions. The book is divided into four parts.

Part one serves as an introduction and is only sixty pages long. Chapters 1 and 2 acquaint the reader with biometric terminology. For example, the authors explain the difference between verification, identification, screening, and continuity of identity systems. They also explain how biometric matching is fundamentally different from password matching in computer security. You can make a password so complex and long that it is very difficult to crack - and difficult to use. Alternatively, the strength of a biometric system is limited by the information content of the biometric characteristic - you cannot make it arbitrarily more complex. Nature limits you. In Chapters 3 and 4, the basic concepts are introduced underlying common biometric systems such as fingerprint, face, speaker, iris, hand geometry, and signature recognition systems. Emerging biometric systems such as those that use DNA, retina, thermograms, gait, keystroke, ear, skin reflectance, lip motion, and body odor for recognition are also mentioned. This is all a very brief and shallow treatment.

Part two talks about the mathematics needed to perform biometric matching. The various system errors that can occur are addressed in chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 6 enhances the reader's understanding of biometric identification, which is a much harder problem than verification. Chapter 7 points out that the best strategy to evaluate biometric systems is to organize competitions among biometric systems and conduct comparative evaluations on a common database and testing protocol. In Chapter 8, the authors provide guidelines on how to select a suitable biometric for various applications. The advantages and disadvantages of each biometric technology is discussed and some of the prevalent myths are debunked.

Part three deals with system issues associated with implementing biometric systems. Chapter 9 discusses enrollment issues when creating and maintaining a database. Many system level issues arise when the database size is very large. In case of certain biometric applications, such as national identification card or driver's license, the database could contain tens of millions of identities and hundreds of millions of biometric samples. In Chapter 10, the authors walk the readers through large-scale system issues. Decision and score level fusions are discussed in Chapter 11 for verification and identification systems. Common design techniques used to secure biometric systems are discussed in Chapter 12, and standards for APIs and databases, certifications and legislation are the topics of Chapter 13.

Part four covers advanced topics. In Chapter 14, the authors present how to estimate the individuality in iris and fingerprint biometrics. Chapter 15 deals with system errors and confidence intervals. In Chapter 16, the authors discuss how cost functions can be used to choose the operating point of a matcher. Finally, methods of estimating the cumulative match curve in identification systems and its relation to the false accept/reject rates are discussed. Chapter 17 is entirely about future trends in biometrics. Since this book was written in 2003, in many cases, the future is now and these trends are already being or have been implemented at least in part.

This book could have been better if some exercises had been included with each chapter. Particularly with all of the statistics and database theory floating around in this book, more practical examples and exercises would enhance student confidence in these areas. However, it is still a good book on the fundamentals of biometrics and the considerations that go into designing a system regardless of the biometric(s) chosen.