Biometrics / Biometric Authentication

Biometrics come in many forms and refers to the identification of humans by their characteristics or traits. It is used as a form of identification and access control.
They can all be broken down into two categories: Physiological or Behavioural. The latter is also sometimes known as Behaviometrics. Some examples of them are (in order of effectiveness)

1. Palm Scan
2. Hand Geometry
3. Iris Scan
4. Retina Scan
5. Fingerprint

Effectiveness is not a sole factor to consider when choosing biometric systems however. There are many more things that need to be weighed in. Performance is generally measured by the following methods:

• False Accept Rate (FAR) or False Match Rate (FMR)
• False Reject Rate (FRR) or False Non-Match Rate (FNMR)
• Relative Operating Characteristics (ROC)
• Equal Error Rate (EER) or Crossover Error Rate (CER)
• Failure to Enrole Rate (FER)
• Failure to Capture Rate (FCR)
• Template Capacity