A Research Project Report on Security and Privacy of Biometrics

This research project report delves into biometrics for authentication, examining its security and privacy implications. It discusses the technology involved, including physiological and behavioral traits used for identification, and contrasts it with traditional password systems. While highlighting the benefits of biometrics in enhancing security, the report also addresses challenges such as the risk of stolen biometrics, the inability to revoke compromised biometrics, and potential privacy violations. Applications of biometrics across commercial, governmental, and forensic domains are explored. The report identifies gaps in the existing literature, particularly concerning privacy issues and difficulties in identification due to extensive comparisons. Future research directions are suggested to address these gaps, focusing on technological solutions to enhance privacy, improve identification processes, and ensure the usability and robustness of biometric systems against fraudulent attacks. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for future research to minimize common biometric errors, address potential health concerns, and certify that biometric systems meet accuracy, speed, and resourcefulness requirements.

Running head: RESEARCH PROJECT REPORT 1
Research Project Report
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Overview of the technology involved..................................................................................3
Applications of biometric systems.......................................................................................5
Challenges/problems in the research...................................................................................5
Identification of gaps in the literature..................................................................................6
Summary of the future research directions based on the identified gaps............................6
References............................................................................................................................7

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Research Project Report
Introduction
This report is about a research project on Biometrics for Authentication: Security and
Privacy Implications. Biometric verification entails any means by which an individual can
uniquely be identified through evaluation of the individual’s one or more distinctive biological
traits (Evans et al., 2015). Unique identifiers used in this system include fingerprints, signatures,
voice waves, DNA, hand geometry and earlobe geometry (Chan, 2016). The oldest among these
identifiers have been fingerprinting. In terms of security, biometrics recognition has been a major
boost as it has bettered the age-old passwords whose safety continues to be questioned. However,
it is never without flaws. One major drawback of this technology has been its cost. In addition, it
is much harder to carry out identification using this system as compared to simple verification
since a large number of comparisons need to be performed by the system. Finally, biometric
authentication can deny those willing to remain anonymous in certain situations like a crime
scene witness (Van Zoonen, 2016). The research project aimed at examining the security of
biometrics and its privacy implications.
Overview of the technology involved
The technology involved in the research project is biometrics. Biometrics is an automated
personal recognition technology that is based on physiological and behavioral traits (Prabhakar et
al., 2003). This technology differs from passwords in that it relies on who you are or what you do
instead of what you know. The technology allows individuals to be identified and authenticated
on the basis of a data that can be recognized and verified and that which is unique and specific to
every individual.

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Biometric authentication entails a process where data for the individual's traits are
compared to that individual's biometric template in order to establish resemblance. It involves
storing data in a database or in a secure portable element such as a smart card then comparing the
stored data to the biometric data of the individual waiting authentication. This works to verify the
individual’s identity. To qualify as biometrics, any human behavioral or physiological traits need
to be universal, distinct, permanent and collectible. In addition, issues like acceptability,
circumvention, and performance are also of significance. For a system to be practical, it needs to
be accurate, speedy and should be able to satisfy the resource requirements. In addition, it needs
to be acceptable by the target population, and be resistant to fraudulent attacks by hackers.
Biometric systems are not perfect and have errors. For instance, a sample of similar
biometric traits obtained from the same individual may differ due to a number of factors. For
example, your right index finger may have different impressions due to imperfect imaging
conditions like dry fingers and noise from the sensors, deviations in behavioral traits of the user
like cuts and bruises, ambient conditions like humidity and temperature, and the way the user
interacts with the sensor. As a result, a matching score is what has been used to define a
biometric matching system. There exist two types of errors can be made by a biometric
verification system. They include the false match where biometric samples from two separate
individuals are mistaken to be from the similar individual. The error is also referred to as false
accept. Another type of error is the false non-match. This error is also known as a false reject. In
this error, two biometric samples obtained from one individual are mistaken to be from the same
person (Prabhakar et al., 2003). Two recognition error rates exist in FNMR and FMR that can
summarize the accuracy of a biometric system. In addition, FCT and FTE can as well be used in
summarizing biometric system’s accuracy. The application of a biometric defines the accuracy

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requirements of a biometric system. For instance, applications in forensics like identification of
criminals critically apply FNMR rate as we do not want to miss a criminal even if it means
manually investigating several people whose potential matches as identified by the biometric
system may be incorrect by a larger margin.
Applications of biometric systems
Biometric technology has a wide range of applications. With the involvement of security,
biometrics has the potential of making operations, transactions and day to day life not only safer
but also convenient (Nandakumar & Jain, 2015). The use of fingerprints in criminal
identification was the first application of biometrics. Advancements in technology have
expanded biometrics use to other applications. Biometric applications fall into commercial
applications, government applications, and forensic applications. Commercial applications of
biometrics entail electric data security, internet access, cellular phones, and management of
records, distance learning, and etcetera. The government has applied biometrics in correction
facilities, social security, national identification cards, border control as well as passport control.
In forensics, biometrics has been used in criminal investigation, determination of parenthood,
corpse identification, terrorist identification, and missing children identification.
Challenges/problems in the research
The challenges highlighted in the research include the risk of stolen biometrics, replacing
compromised biometrics, the problem of identification and privacy violations. Under risk of
stolen biometrics, a hacker may use a known biometric sample of an individual to feed into the
biometric system. Inability to revoke biometrics also poses a major challenge in that when a
biometric is altered, it cannot be rectified. The need for identification to perform larger

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comparison makes it harder which presents another challenge. Finally, privacy has also been
highlighted as a major problem with biometrics as biometric recognition could deny individuals
who desire to remain anonymous under certain situations their privacy.
Identification of gaps in the literature
The major gap in the research literature is on privacy and biometrics. I think the research
has failed to address the privacy issue of biometrics. For instance, one issue raised in the research
is that biometric authentication can deny those willing to remain anonymous in certain situations
like a crime scene witness. The other drawback that the research has failed to address is the
difficulty in identification that results from a large number of comparisons performed by
biometrics.
Summary of the future research directions based on the identified gaps
The future research directions that will seek to address the gaps identified in the research
literature would involve addressing privacy of biometrics through technology, addressing the
difficulty in identification, and digging more into the usability of biometrics. To summarize,
future research is needed to minimize the most common biometric errors and to determine if
there may be a health concern with the technology. Finally, future research must certify that
biometrics meet the requirements such as being accurate, speedy, and resourceful. In addition, it
must be accepted by the target population as well as being robust to fraudulent methods and
attacks.

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References
Chan, K. J. (2016, January). Privacy Perceptions in Biometrics Operations. In Proceedings of the
International Conference on e-Learning, e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems,
and e-Government (EEE) (p. 143). The Steering Committee of The World Congress in
Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing (WorldComp).
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.
Nandakumar, K., & Jain, A. K. (2015). Biometric template protection: Bridging the performance
gap between theory and practice. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 32(5), 88-100.
Prabhakar, S., Pankanti, S., & Jain, A. K. (2003). Biometric Recognition: Security and privacy
concerns. IEEE security & privacy, 99(2), 33-42.
Van Zoonen, L. (2016). Privacy concerns in smart cities. Government Information Quarterly,
33(3), 472-480.