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With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technology, it is necessary to restrict access to sensitive/personal data. By replacing PINs, biometric techniques can potentially prevent unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of ATMs, cellular phones, smart cards, desktop PCs, workstations, and computer networks.

PINs and passwords may be forgotten, and token based methods of identification like passports and driver's licenses may be forged, stolen, or lost. Thus biometric systems of identification are enjoying a renewed interest. Various types of biometric systems are being used for real-time identification, the most popular are based on face recognition and fingerprint matching.

Other types of biometric methods include iris scanning, retina scanning, handwriting analysis, palm-print recognition and voice recognition.

A biometric system is essentially a pattern recognition system, which makes a personal identification by determining the authenticity of a specific physiological or behavioral characteristics possessed by the user. An important issue in designing a practical system is to determine how an individual is identified. Depending on the context, a biometric system can be either a verification (authentication) system or an identification system.

There are two different ways to resolve a person's identity: verification and identification. Verification (in Fingerprint recognition, using 1:1 algorithm) involves confirming or denying a person's claimed identity. In identification, one has to establish a person's identity (in Fingerprint recognition, using 1:N algorithm). Each one of these approaches has it's own complexities and could probably be solved best by a certain biometric system.

Biometrics literally means "life measurement." In the realm of security, it refers to automated methods for identifying people based on their unique physical characteristics or behavioral traits. This method of identification is preferred over current methods involving passwords and PIN numbers for various reasons: the person to be identified is required to be physically present at the point-of-identification; identification based on biometric techniques obviates the need to remember a password or carry a token.

Biometric security is a $399-million-revenue industry as of year 2000, and is expected to grow to $1.9-billion by year 2005 thanks to the increasing concern on security after September 11th and the rapid growth in Internet transaction activities. The use of biometric technology is expanding rapidly, entering an increasing number of physical security (door, buildings) and logical security (PCs, networks) applications. Finger-scan continues to be the leading biometric technology in terms of market share, commanding nearly 50% of non-AFIS biometric revenue.
Biometric Market Report 2000-2005 reveals that biometric revenues attributable to PC/Network Access are expected to grow at a rapid pace over the next 24 months, driven by the increased awareness of employee authentication problems at the enterprise level. In the 24-48 month range, biometrics become a more common consumer-facing solution, and new biometric revenue models based on transactional authentication begin to emerge. Hardware and packaged software solutions will comprise a comparatively smaller portion of biometric revenues. Instead, new service models will leverage a burgeoning biometric infrastructure comprised