Biometrics for Authentication: Security and Privacy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of biometrics for authentication, focusing on its security and privacy implications. It begins with an overview of the technology, detailing recent advancements like retina scans and vein identification, and their applications. The report then highlights key ...Read More

Running head: BIOMETRICS: SECURITY AND PRIVACY IMPLICATIONS
BIOMETRICS: SECURITY AND PRIVACY IMPLICATIONS
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1BIOMETRICS: SECURITY AND PRIVACY IMPLICATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................2
Recent advances and developments.......................................................................................2
Gaps in literature....................................................................................................................4
Future Research..........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Biometric authentication refers to the procedure of validating identity of individuals
using some unique characteristics of the individuals’ body and then allowing him to log onto
any app, a service or a device. The technology on which it is based is complicated and is a
new way to verify authentication of people. It is the other name for measuring and calculating
body parameters. Identification based on this technology is a process of verifying that the
person concerned is authorized and the authentication technique goes a step ahead by using
the information that has been fed into the system to compare the data stored in a database and
then provides the information in a particular service (Akhtar, Micheloni & Foresti, 2015).
Biometric system provides security and is much more convenient than the traditional methods
related to personal recognition. It relies on the distinct biological features of an individual to
validate their information and confirms access only if the information in the database matches
that with the captured data (Aono et al., 2015). The technology mainly applies to managing
access to digital resources and physical resources such as computing devices, building and
rooms. Individuals consider privacy as their fundamental right and the security and privacy
issues related to the biometric technologies is a major concern. According to the individuals it
is infringement of their personal rights as biometric system stores and keeps records of their
data.
Literature Review
The technology involved in the biometric recognition dates back to the 20th century
when the concept was developed for bringing effective changes in the statistical and the
mathematical methods that were applicable mainly to the data analysis problems referring to
biological sciences (Biggio et al., 2015). The recent developments in the biometrics
technology address the key problem of authenticating individuals and have been a revolution

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in the industry. Dating back it found its application in forensic departments and used to be
handled by human experts. The various advantages the technology is laced with has made it
popular in many spheres such as in border control at the airports and controlling the access of
the visitors in the Walt Disney amusement parks. A general biometric system is mostly a
system that recognizes pattern and based on this pattern it performs identity checks according
to the characteristics of the individuals (Bonaci, Calo & Chizeck, 2015). The authentication
done on the basis of finger print has been used by the law enforcement agencies for long time
now and from the past few decades the technology has spread its roots in government and
private sectors throughout the world.
Recent advances and developments
With the advent of technologies there have been rapid developments in the biometric
system as well. The two basic applications of the technology that are identification and
authentication are the topic of research and at the same time the associated security and
privacy implications are also been analyzed. The current technologies in this sphere are a
combination of the identification and authentication techniques that involves matching the
individual traits stored in the database to that of the captured data when gaining access. Some
of the recent developments include retina scan, DNA matching, vein identification and many
more (Cao & Ge, 2015). The retina scan technology makes use of the unique retina features
for the purpose of identification and authentication. It is the least used technology in this
specific field and only used by some highly categorized governments and military services.
DNA matching is also an emerging technology related to biometrics that depends on
analyzing DNA sequences for the purpose of identifying and authenticating individuals. The
vein identification technology makes use of vein patterns on the back of the hand to identify
and authenticate individuals (Evans et al., 2015). The technologies have potential to deliver
more but are still under the developing schemes. Vein identification has been implemented in

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the commercial sectors. These are liable of resolving the security issues prevalent now-a-
days.
Gaps in literature
The systems performing recognition using the biometrics technology exist within a
group of other identification technologies and it offers some unique potentials and challenges.
The existing identification technologies rely upon three basic things that are: some
information that the individuals know for example passwords; some of the things that an
individual has for example secure token and something that the individual does. Biometric
system inculcates the last of the above said things. Biometric systems function without user
cooperation, active input and knowledge of the recognition taking place. Thus biometric
systems cannot effectively replace the existing systems as they pose a threat to the privacy of
the users (Karimian, Wortman & Tehranipoor, 2016). Accidental disclosure of the data stored
in the biometric system can lead to disastrous consequences that could not be remediated
easily unlike in case of loss of tokens or password exposure. Due to their probabilistic nature,
the biometric systems are vulnerable to intentional attempts undermining the confidence in
the system’s reliability and the related discussions of the uncertainty of the probabilities can
be easily twisted to a specific suggestion that the technology is unreliable.
Future Research
The future researches should focus on finding better ways to replace the other
authentication techniques by checking the vulnerabilities in the biometric system. It could be
achieved by combining the traditional authentication approaches with the biometric ones. The
methods that could be considered to combine the technologies should be able to augment the
security in the applications in which the cooperation of the users can be readily inferred.

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Security challenges related to the biometric authentication need to be discussed along with
the probable remediation. Biometric authentication systems are vulnerable to attacks that
undermine the integrity and the reliability of the systems. Unlike the password and the token
based systems the breach in biometric system cannot be resolved easily. In case of biometric
systems it is not possible to alter a biometric trait that is already compromised (Ngo, Teoh &
Hu, 2015). The complications in the process can be a topic of research in future because the
technology is losing its deserved acknowledgement due to the added privacy issues with it.
The complications involve that different biometric systems use the same trait and disruptions
in any of the systems could result in compromises of that trait to use in the remaining
systems. The traits are not kept a secret and are exposed in day to day life such as fingerprints
are left on the surfaces that are touched, faces are photographed and voices recorded
(Zeadally & Badra, (2015). The stolen data are made use to develop new sets of database and
make illegal use of it. It is vital to verify that a particular trait that has been presented to gain
access is of the person who is the owner of those traits. The trustworthiness of the process
requires proper management rather than just focusing on evaluating the proffered
characteristics of the biometric system.
Conclusion
The methods that are used for the analysis and improvement of the systems linked to
different fields should be made use in testing and developing the biometric systems regularly.
The biometric authentication system database must be assessed and maintained at a regular
basis to bring in developments in the technology. The testing methods and the results on the
security and privacy implications should be assessed independently. With the evolvement of
technologies there have been more trends in the field of managing identity. These trends are
generated through one of the basic needs that are accomplishing accuracy and security in the
process of the identifications.

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References
Akhtar, Z., Micheloni, C., & Foresti, G. L. (2015). Biometric liveness detection: Challenges
and research opportunities. IEEE Security & Privacy, 13(5), 63-72.
Aono, Y., Hayashi, T., Le Trieu Phong, & Wang, L. (2015). Fast and Secure Linear
Regression and Biometric Authentication with Security Update. IACR Cryptology
ePrint Archive, 2015, 692.
Biggio, B., Russu, P., Didaci, L., & Roli, F. (2015). Adversarial biometric recognition: A
review on biometric system security from the adversarial machine-learning
perspective. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 32(5), 31-41.
Bonaci, T., Calo, R., & Chizeck, H. J. (2015). App stores for the brain: privacy and security
in brain-computer interfaces. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 34(2), 32-39.
Cao, L., & Ge, W. (2015). Analysis and improvement of a multi‐factor biometric
authentication scheme. Security and Communication Networks, 8(4), 617-625.
Evans, N., Marcel, S., Ross, A., & Teoh, A. B. J. (2015). Biometrics security and privacy
protection [from the guest editors]. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 32(5), 17-18.
Karimian, N., Wortman, P. A., & Tehranipoor, F. (2016, October). Evolving authentication
design considerations for the internet of biometric things (IoBT). In Proceedings of
the Eleventh IEEE/ACM/IFIP International Conference on Hardware/Software
Codesign and System Synthesis (p. 10). ACM.
Ngo, D. C. L., Teoh, A. B. J., & Hu, J. (Eds.). (2015). Biometric security. Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.

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Zeadally, S., & Badra, M. (Eds.). (2015). Privacy in a Digital, Networked World:
Technologies, Implications and Solutions. Springer.