Biometrics

This chapter explains why designing biometric systems is actually a very difficult problem. The problem has been made to look easier than it actually is by the way that the technology has been portrayed in movies and on television. Biometric systems are typically depicted as being easy to use and secure, whereas encryption that would actually take billions of years of supercomputer time to defeat is often depicted as being easily bypassed with minimal effort. This portrayal of biometric systems may have increased expectations well past what current technologies can actually deliver, and it is important to understand the limitations of existing biometric technologies and to have realistic expectations of the security that such systems can provide in the real world.