Biometrics Authentication: The Future of Security
Biometric security has grown exponentially in popularity in the past couple of years. Fingerprint sensors, facial recognition, and voice recognition are a few of the different types of biometric authentication that are emerging today. What once was only seen in movies has now started to be integrated into our everyday lives. Currently, most new smartphones or computers are equipped with some form of biometric authentication, with Apple introducing a fingerprint scanner to their iPhone 5’s as early as 2013. The most common form of biometric authentication that we see today is fingerprint authentication, but over time other methods will start to be integrated as well, with Apple introducing face id to their iPhone X in 2017 and Samsung introducing a combination of iris recognition and facial recognition to their smartphones.
Why are the advantages of biometric security?
In the past the most popular form of personal authentication was through passwords and keys, with people using them to unlock a variety of accounts or gain access to buildings. The main issue with passwords and keys is that there is always the possibility that you forget your password or that you lose or forget to bring your keys. Another issue with passwords is that there are so many different passwords that we need to create that it becomes increasingly difficult to remember them all, and because of this many people use the same password for all their accounts or create passwords that are too simple and easy to guess. With biometric authentication you never have to worry about forgetting a password or forgetting to bring a key with you. Your biometrics will always be with you. Biometric authentication can also save a lot of time. It takes time to enter a password and you will not always remember what password you should use right away, where with biometrics a sensor scans your biometrics and if they match you are in.
What are the disadvantages?
Although there are many advantages to biometric authentication it still does have its downsides. One of the biggest downsides is that they do not always work properly depending on the environment. For example, if you are trying to use a fingerprint sensor and your finger is slightly damp or too cold the fingerprint sensor sometimes will not recognize your fingerprint. It can also be more expensive to install biometric sensors compared to using a password. Your biometrics can also never be changed if they become compromised. There was an incident in 2015 where there was theft of data containing around 5.6 million fingerprints from the US Office of Personnel Management and in 2019 there was a leak of over 23 Gigabytes of data containing various forms of biometric data such as fingerprints and facial recognition scans [2].
Conclusion
Biometric authentication is an alternative form of authentication compared to passwords and provides quick and secure access to our devices and accounts. It eliminates the need to remember countless passwords and increases the security of our devices and accounts. Although it does still have its risks, biometric authentication is being improved constantly as time goes on and may eliminate the need for passwords in the future.
References
[1] I. F. S. E. C. Global, “Biometric security systems: A guide to devices, fingerprint scanners, facial recognition, access control,” IFSEC Global | Security and Fire News and Resources, 30-Jul-2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.ifsecglobal.com/global/biometric-security-systems-guide-devices-fingerprint-scanners-facial-recognition/. [Accessed: 05-Oct-2021].
[2] “What is biometric security?,” Clario Tech, Clario Cybersecurity, Clario Software, We Are Clario. [Online]. Available: https://clario.co/blog/what-is-biometric-security/. [Accessed: 05-Oct-2021].
