biometrics

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Dictionary: bi·o·met·rics (bī'ō-mĕt'rĭks) pronunciation

n. (used with a sing. verb)

The statistical study of biological phenomena.
The measurement of physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, DNA, or retinal patterns, for use in verifying the identity of individuals.

biometric bi'o·met'ric or bi'o·met'ri·cal adj.
biometrically bi'o·met'ri·cal·ly adv.

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Statistics Dictionary: Biometrics

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The quarterly journal of the International Biometric Society. It was first published under that name in 1947, with Gertrude Cox as the first Editor.

External Links:

http://www.biometrics.tibs.org/ -- Journal home page.

Computer Desktop Encyclopedia: biometric signature

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An authentication method that uses the dynamics of a person's handwritten signature. The pen pressure and duration of the signing process, which is done with a stylus on a touch screen or digital-based pen tablet, is recorded as an algorithm that is compared against future signatures. See biometrics and keyboard biometrics.

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Accounting Dictionary: Biometrics

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A technique that identifies people based on their unique physical characteristics or behavioral traits.

Small Business Encyclopedia: Biometrics

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Biometrics is a field of science that uses computer technology to identify people based on physical or behavioral characteristics, such as fingerprints or voice scans. "Bio" in the name refers to the physiological traits that are measured, while "metrics" refers to the quantitative analysis that provides a positive identification of a unique individual. Biometrics are gaining widespread use in the business world as means to make the workplace more secure and efficient. The technology promises almost foolproof security for facilities and computer networks. It also helps employees increase their productivity by providing instant identification for time cards, payroll processing, computer logins, phone or copy machine usage, and myriad other purposes.

"The biometrics industry, which produces technologies to identify people by their natural biological features, such as fingerprints, the patterns in the eye's iris, and facial characteristics—the stuff of Mission Impossible—is sensing the chance to break out of high-tech security doors and enter the mainstream of daily life," Julian Perkin wrote in the Financial Times. "Biometrics are enjoying good reviews from the businesses that have integrated them into their systems to date," Sheila Smith Drapeau added in the Westchester County Business Journal. "They are proving themselves reliable, time efficient, affordable, and easy to use—another nod to shaving a few dollars off the office payroll. And their popularity is expected to skyrocket as aging baby boomers concerned with memory loss eagerly seek an alternative to remembering passwords, numerical systems, and their car keys."

One benefit of biometrics is that it relieves people from the burden of remembering dozens of different passwords to company computer networks, e-mail systems, Web sites, etc. In addition to creating distinct passwords for each system they use or Web site they visit, people are expected to change their passwords frequently. Employees who have trouble remembering their passwords may be more likely to keep a written list in a desk drawer or posted on a bulletin board, thus creating a security risk. But biometrics offers an easy solution to this problem. "An employee may not be able to remember a dozen passwords and PINs, but is very unlikely to forget or misplace his or her thumb," P.J. Connolly wrote in InfoWorld.

A related problem with passwords is that they do not provide reliable security. In fact, hackers can download password-cracking software for free on the Internet that will test the most obvious combinations of characters for each user on a system and often find a way in. Electronic retailers have found that their prospective customers are aware of the unreliable nature of password-based security systems. A survey conducted by Yankelovich Partners and reported in Entrepreneur indicated that security concerns prevent 31 percent of Internet users from making purchases online. Installing a biometrics-based security system is likely to impress customers who are concerned about Web site security. "You may already have the solution to all your security needs right in the palm of your hand—or, more likely, at your fingertips," Mike Hogan noted in Entrepreneur. "That's because biometrics offers an answer to all security and authorization issues."

Biometrics systems—which once cost tens of thousands of dollars to install—were originally used only by large corporations and the government. But now less expensive systems—costing as little as a few hundred dollars per desktop—are making the technology available to smaller businesses and individual consumers. As a result, analysts believe that the usage of biometrics will grow over the next few years, so that the technology will become prevalent on the Internet as well as in businesses. Several recent developments have helped assure the future of biometrics. For example, digital signature legislation passed in 2000 provided for biometric authentication to be accepted in place of a written signature and considered legally binding on documents. In addition, Microsoft announced that it would support biometric technology in future versions of Windows, making it easier to build Internet and network servers that can accept the biometric identifications. Before long, biometric scanning devices may be bundled into every new PC sold.

One of the first general applications of biometric technology may be in the health care industry. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act recommended biometric authentication for health care facilities and insurance providers and set high penalties for improper or negligent disclosure of medical information. At some time in the future, every U.S. citizen's medical records may be available online and accessible with biometric authentication. This would allow individuals to access their records from a pharmacy or an emergency room far from home. It would also allow physicians to share case information and expertise online. However, many people still have concerns about privacy and worry that the online availability of medical records might affect their ability to change jobs or obtain insurance.

How Biometrics Systems Work

The main biometrics systems on the market work by scanning an individual's fingerprints, hands, face, iris, retina, voice pattern, signature, or strokes on a keyboard. According to Hogan, finger scanning accounts for 34 percent of biometric system sales, followed by hand scanning with 26 percent, face scanning with 15 percent, voice scanning and eye scanning with 11 percent each, and signature scanning with 3 percent. Retinal scanning—which reads the blood vessels in the back of the eye and requires the user to be within six inches of the scanning device—is the most accurate system but also the least likely to enjoy widespread use because of people's natural protectiveness toward their eyes.

Once the scanner reads the user's physiological information, the computer begins analyzing it. "The system reads the physical or behavioral characteristic, looks for telltale minutiae, and applies an algorithm that uniquely expresses those minutiae as a very large alphanumeric key," Bill Orr explained in the ABA Banking Journal. "This sample key then goes to a repository where it is compared with a key (called a template) that was created by the approved user when she enrolled in the system. This in turn generates a score based on how closely the two samples match."

Some experts suggest that the various types of biometric technologies will be combined as needed to fit different user applications. "If you already have a telephone in your hand, the most natural thing in the world is to use voice scanning for identification," Samir Nanavati of the International Biometric Group told Hogan. "If you're already typing at a keyboard, the unique pattern of how you type makes the most sense. And if you need an electronic signature anyway, why not do a biometric match for identification purposes?"

For companies hoping to incorporate some form of biometrics into their facility or computer security systems, the most difficult aspect of the process might be making various systems work together. "The tough part of implementing a biometric method isn't choosing between face, fingerprint, and voice pattern recognition but integrating the chosen method with your existing applications," Connolly acknowledged in InfoWorld. Even though biometric scanners are becoming more affordable, Web site operators still have to buy authentication and authorization servers that can accept the biometric identifications. However, some vendors are beginning to offer these services for companies that are unable to maintain a biometric server in-house.

Perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome in adopting biometric technology is employee or customer concern about its invasiveness. For example, many people think the technology could be used to collect fingerprints for a huge database. "But that's not how it works," Hogan noted. "While biometrics may make you more efficient at matching your Web site visitors to the customer profiles you keep of them, it doesn't provide any more information about the user at the point of access than the typical password system."

Introduction

The basic block diagram of a biometric system

It is possible to understand if a human characteristic can be used for biometrics in terms of the following parameters:^[2]

Universality – each person should have the characteristic.
Uniqueness – is how well the biometric separates individuals from another.
Permanence – measures how well a biometric resists aging and other variance over time.
Collectability – ease of acquisition for measurement.
Performance – accuracy, speed, and robustness of technology used.
Acceptability – degree of approval of a technology.
Circumvention – ease of use of a substitute.

A biometric system can operate in the following two modes:

Verification – A one to one comparison of a captured biometric with a stored template to verify that the individual is who he claims to be. Can be done in conjunction with a smart card, username or ID number.
Identification – A one to many comparison of the captured biometric against a biometric database in attempt to identify an unknown individual. The identification only succeeds in identifying the individual if the comparison of the biometric sample to a template in the database falls within a previously set threshold.

The first time an individual uses a biometric system is called an enrollment. During the enrollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. In subsequent uses, biometric information is detected and compared with the information stored at the time of enrollment. Note that it is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric system is to be robust. The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and the system; it has to acquire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired. The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g. removing background noise), to use some kind of normalization, etc. In the third block features needed are extracted. This step is an important step as the correct features need to be extracted in the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of the relevant characteristics extracted from the source. Elements of the biometric measurement that are not used in the comparison algorithm are discarded in the template to reduce the filesize and to protect the identity of the enrollee.

If enrollment is being performed the template is simply stored somewhere (on a card or within a database or both). If a matching phase is being performed, the obtained template is passed to a matcher that compares it with other existing templates, estimating the distance between them using any algorithm (e.g. Hamming distance). The matching program will analyze the template with the input. This will then be output for any specified use or purpose (e.g. entrance in a restricted area).

Performance

The following are used as performance metrics for biometric systems:^[3]

false accept rate or false match rate (FAR or FMR) – the probability that the system incorrectly matches the input pattern to a non-matching template in the database. It measures the percent of invalid inputs which are incorrectly accepted.
false reject rate or false non-match rate (FRR or FNMR) – the probability that the system fails to detects a match between the input pattern and a matching template in the database. It measures the percent of valid inputs which are incorrectly rejected.
receiver operating characteristic or relative operating characteristic (ROC) – The ROC plot is a visual charactization of the trade-off between the FAR and the FRR. In general, the matching algorithm performs a decision based on a threshold which determines how close to a template the input needs to be for it to be considered a match. If the threshold is reduced, there will be less false non-matches but more false accepts. Correspondingly, a higher threshold will reduce the FAR but increase the FRR. A common variation is the Detection error trade-off (DET), which is obtained using normal deviate scales on both axes. This more linear graph illuminates the differences for higher performances (rarer errors).
equal error rate or crossover error rate (EER or CER) – the rate at which both accept and reject errors are equal. The value of the EER can be easily obtained from the ROC curve. The EER is a quick way to compare the accuarcy of devices with different ROC curves. In general, the device with the lowest EER is most accurate. Obtained from the ROC plot by taking the point where FAR and FRR have the same value. The lower the EER, the more accurate the system is considered to be.
failure to enroll rate (FTE or FER) – the rate at which attempts to create a template from an input is unsuccessful. This is most commonly caused by low quality inputs.
failure to capture rate (FTC) – Within automatic systems, the probability that the system fails to detect a biometric input when presented correctly.
template capacity – the maximum number of sets of data which can be stored in the system..

As the sensitivity of the biometric device increaes, the FAR decreases but the FRR increases.

Issues and concerns

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Privacy and discrimination

Data obtained during biometric enrollment could be used in ways the enrolled individual does not consent to.

Danger to owners of secured items

When thieves cannot get access to secure properties, there is a chance that the thieves will stalk and assault the property owner to gain access. If the item is secured with a biometric device, the damage to the owner could be irreversible, and potentially cost more than the secured property. For example, in 2005, Malaysian car thieves cut off the finger of a Mercedes-Benz S-Class owner when attempting to steal the car^[4].

Cancelable biometrics

One advantage of passwords over biometrics is that they can be re-issued. If a token or a password is lost or stolen, it can be cancelled and replaced by a newer version. This is not naturally available in biometrics. If someone’s face is compromised from a database, they cannot cancel or reissue it. Cancelable biometrics is a way in which to incorporate protection and the replacement features into biometrics. It was first proposed by Ratha et al.^[5]

Several methods for generating cancelable biometrics have been proposed. Essentially, cancelable biometrics perform a distortion of the biometric image or features before matching. The variability in the distortion parameters provides the cancelable nature of the scheme. Some of the proposed techniques operate using their own recognition engines, such as Teoh et al.^[6] and Savvides et al.,^[7] whereas other methods, such as Dabbah et al.,^[8] take the advantage of the advancement of the well-established biometric research for their recognition front-end to conduct recognition. Although this increases the restrictions on the protection system, it makes the cancellable templates more accessible for available biometric technologies.

Countries applying biometrics

United States

The United States government has become a strong advocate of biometrics with the increase in fear of terrorism since September 11, 2001.

The FBI is currently spending $1 billion to create a new biometric database, which will store DNA, fingerprints, and other biometric data. The computers running the database will be contained in an underground facility about the size of a football field.^[9]

Both the Department of Homeland Security and DARPA are heavily funding research into facial recognition systems.^[10] The Information Processing Technology Office, ran a program known as Human Identification at a Distance which developed technologies that are capable of identifying a person at up to 500 ft by their facial features.

Bush issued a presidential directive (NSPD 59, HSPD 24)^[11] in 2008 which requires increased capability for sharing and interoperability in "collection, storage, use, analysis, and sharing of biometric and associated biographic and contextual information of individuals" among the departments and agencies of the executive branch of the U.S. federal government.^[11]^[12]

Starting in 2005, US passports with facial (image-based) biometric data were scheduled to be produced. Privacy activists in many countries have criticized the technology's use for the potential harm to civil liberties, privacy, and the risk of identity theft. Currently, there is some apprehension in the United States (and the European Union) that the information can be "skimmed" and identify people's citizenship remotely for criminal intent, such as kidnapping.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) Common Access Card, is an ID card issued to all US Service personnel and contractors on US Military sites. This card contains biometric data and digitized photographs. It also has laser-etched photographs and holograms to add security and reduce the risk of falsification. There have been over 10 million of these cards issued.

According to Jim Wayman, director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University, Walt Disney World is the nation's largest single commercial application of biometrics.^[13] However, the US-VISIT program will very soon surpass Walt Disney World for biometrics deployment.

Germany

The biometrics market in Germany will experience enormous growth until 2009. “The market size will increase from approximately 12 million € (2004) to 377 million €” (2009). “The federal government will be a major contributor to this development”.^[14] In particular, the biometric procedures of fingerprint and facial recognition can profit from the government project.^[14] In May 2005 the German Upper House of Parliament approved the implementation of the ePass, a passport issued to all German citizens which contain biometric technology. The ePass has been in circulation since November 2005, and contains a chip that holds a digital photograph and one fingerprint from each hand, usually of the index fingers, though others may be used if these fingers are missing or have extremely distorted prints. “A third biometric identifier – iris scans – could be added at a later stage”.^[15] An increase in the prevalence of biometric technology in Germany is an effort to not only keep citizens safe within German borders but also to comply with the current US deadline for visa-waiver countries to introduce biometric passports.^[15] In addition to producing biometric passports for German citizens, the German government has put in place new requirements for visitors to apply for visas within the country. “Only applicants for long-term visas, which allow more than three months' residence, will be affected by the planned biometric registration program. The new work visas will also include fingerprinting, iris scanning, and digital photos”.^[16]

Germany is also one of the first countries to implement biometric technology at the Olympic Games to protect German athletes. “The Olympic Games is always a diplomatically tense affair and previous events have been rocked by terrorist attacks - most notably when Germany last held the Games in Munich in 1972 and 11 Israeli athletes were killed”.^[17]

Biometric technology was first used at the Olympic Summer Games in Athens, Greece in 2004. “On registering with the scheme, accredited visitors will receive an ID card containing their fingerprint biometrics data that will enable them to access the 'German House'. Accredited visitors will include athletes, coaching staff, team management and members of the media”.^[17]

As a protest against the increasing use of biometric data, the influential hacker group Chaos Computer Club published a fingerprint of German Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble in the March 2008 edition of its magazine Datenschleuder. The magazine also included the fingerprint on a film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers.^[18]

Brazil

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Since the beginning of the 20th century, Brazilian citizens have had user ID cards. The decision by the Brazilian government to adopt fingerprint-based biometrics was spearheaded by Dr. Felix Pacheco at Rio de Janeiro, at that time capital of the Federative Republic. Dr. Pacheco was a friend of Dr. Juan Vucetich, who invented one of the most complete tenprint classification systems in existence. The Vucetich system was adopted not only in Brazil, but also by most of the other South American countries. The oldest and most traditional ID Institute in Brazil (Instituto de Identificação Félix Pacheco) was integrated at DETRAN^[19] (Brazilian equivalent to DMV) into the civil and criminal AFIS system in 1999.

Each state in Brazil is allowed to print its own ID card, but the layout and data are the same for all of them. The ID cards printed in Rio de Janeiro are fully digitized using a 2D bar code with information which can be matched against its owner off-line. The 2D bar code encodes a color photo, a signature, two fingerprints, and other citizen data. This technology was developed in 2000 in order to enhance the safety of the Brazilian ID cards.

By the end of 2005, the Brazilian government started the development of its new passport. The new documents started to be released by the beginning of 2007, in Brasilia. The new passport included several security features, like Laser perforation, UV hidden symbols, security layer over variable data and etc. Brazilian citizens will have their signature, photo, and 10 rolled fingerprints collected during passport requests. All of the data is planned to be stored in ICAO E-passport standard. This allows for contactless electronic reading of the passport content and Citizens ID verification since fingerprint templates and token facial images will be available for automatic recognition.

Iraq

Biometrics are being used extensively in Iraq to catalogue as many Iraqis as possible providing Iraqis with a verifiable identification card, immune to forgery. During account creation, the collected biometrics information is logged into a central database which then allows a user profile to be created. Even if an Iraqi has lost their ID card, their identification can be found and verified by using their unique biometric information. Additional information can also be added to each account record, such as individual personal history. This can help American forces determine whether someone has been causing trouble in the past.

Japan

United Kingdom

Fingerprint scanners used in some schools to facilitate the subtraction of funds from an account financed by parents for the payment of school dinners. By using such a system nutritional reports can be produced for parents to surveil a child's intake. This has raised questions from liberty groups as taking away the liberty of choice from the youth of society. Other concerns arise from the possibility of data leaking from the providers of school meals to interest groups that provide health services such as the NHS and insurance groups that may end up having a detrimental effect on the ability of individuals to enjoy equality of access to services.

Australia

Visitors intending to visit Australia may soon have to submit to biometric authentication as part of the Smartgate system, linking individuals to their visas and passports. Biometric data are already collected from some visa applicants by Immigration. Australia is the first country to introduce a Biometrics Privacy Code, which is established and administered by the Biometrics Institute. The Biometrics Institute Privacy Code Biometrics Institute forms part of Australian privacy legislation. The Code includes privacy standards that are at least equivalent to the Australian National Privacy Principles (NPPs) in the Privacy Act and also incorporates higher standards of privacy protection in relation to certain acts and practices. Only members of the Biometrics Institute are eligible to subscribe to this Code. Biometrics Institute membership, and thus subscription to this Code, is voluntary.

Canada

Canada has begun research into the use of biometric technology in the area of border security and immigration. Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency will probably be the first government institutions to fully implement the technology in Canada.

Israel

The Israeli government has proposed a bill calling for the creation of a database of all Israeli citizens. The citizens will be obliged to submit fingerprints, facial features will also be kept. ^[20] The bill is expected to be voted over in September 2009. Opponents of the proposed law, including prominent Israeli scientists and security experts, warn that the existence of such a database could damage both civil liberties and state security, because any leaks could be used by criminals or hostile individuals against citizens. ^[21]^[22]

Biometrics in popular culture

This section requires expansion.

Biometric technologies have been found in a number of popular cinema released films. This alone has created an interest, from general consumers, as a means of identifying ones self. In 2003 both X-Men 2 and Hulk used biometric recognition technologies in the form of hand access control in X-Men 2 and fingerprint access in Hulk.

It wasn't however until 2004 when iRobot was released, staring American actor, Will Smith, that biometrics were truly showcased. The film set well into the future had some of the most advanced technologies on show, many of which hadn't, and still have not been developed today. The usage however of voice and palm recognition in the film cemented the futuristic look of the film in the audiences mind, and both of which are in constant use today for securing buildings or sensitive data, these though just being two of many applications.

In 2005 the film The Island was released and maybe one of the reasons that biometric technologies are still today met with some scepticism. Twice in the film clones use biometrics as a way of entering a house and starting a car. A persons biometrics are unique to that individual this means that only that individual can use, and be accepted by that particular method of identification. With this said if the clone was indeed as stated, a 100% complete "clone" which in the natural world has a likely hood of circa 1 in 1000 billion plus; then this could actually theoretically work.

The movie Gattaca portrays a society in which there are two classes of people: those genetically engineered to be superior (termed "Valid") and the inferior natural humans ("Invalid"). People considered "Valid" have greater privileges, and access to areas restricted to such persons is controlled by automated biometric scanners similar in appearance to fingerprint scanners, but which prick the finger and sample DNA from the resulting blood droplet.
The television program MythBusters attempted to break into a commercial security door^[specify] equipped with biometric authentication as well as a personal laptop so equipped.^[23] While the laptop's system proved more difficult to bypass, the advanced commercial security door with "live" sensing was fooled with a printed scan of a fingerprint after it had been licked.

References

^ http://www.cilab.upf.edu/biosecure1/public_docs_deli/BioSecure_Deliverable_D10-2-3_b3.pdf^{[dead link]}
^ Jain, A. K.; Ross, Arun; Prabhakar, Salil (January 2004), "An introduction to biometric recognition", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology 14th (1): 4–20, doi:10.1109/TCSVT.2003.818349
^ ""CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS"". Cernet. http://www.ccert.edu.cn/education/cissp/hism/039-041.html.
^ BBC News: Malaysia car thieves steal finger
Another report, giving more credence to the story: [1]
^ N. K. Ratha, J. H. Connell, and R. M. Bolle, "Enhancing security and privacy in biometrics-based authentication systems," IBM systems Journal, vol. 40, pp. 614-634, 2001.
^ A. B. J. Teoh, A. Goh, and D. C. L. Ngo, "Random Multispace Quantization as an Analytic Mechanism for BioHashing of Biometric and Random Identity Inputs," Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 28, pp. 1892-1901, 2006.
^ M. Savvides, B. V. K. V. Kumar, and P. K. Khosla, ""Corefaces"- Robust Shift Invariant PCA based Correlation Filter for Illumination Tolerant Face Recognition," presented at IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR'04), 2004.
^ M. A. Dabbah, W. L. Woo, and S. S. Dlay, "Secure Authentication for Face Recognition," presented at Computational Intelligence in Image and Signal Processing, 2007. CIISP 2007. IEEE Symposium on, 2007.
^ Arena, Kelly; Carol Cratty (February 4, 2008). "FBI wants palm prints, eye scans, tattoo mapping". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/04/fbi.biometrics/. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
^ Frank, Thomas (May 10, 2007). "Face recognition next in terror fight". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-10-facial-recognition-terrorism_N.htm. Retrieved 2009-03-16.
^ ^a ^b Office of the Press Secretary, The White House (June 5, 2008). "National Security Presidential Directive and Homeland Security Presidential Directive". Press release. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/06/20080605-8.html. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
^ Bain, Ben (June 6, 2008). "Bush pushes biometrics for national security". Federal Computer Week (Media, Inc.). http://www.fcw.com/online/news/152750-1.html. Retrieved 2008-06-30.
^ Article describing Disney's 2006 biometric initiative replacing hand geometric scanners with fingerprint readers
^ ^a ^b The Biometrics Market in Germany 2004-2009: Anti-terrorism Laws Drive Growth - Market Research Reports - Research and Markets
^ ^a ^b IDABC - DE: Germany to phase-in biometric passports from November 2005
^ Migration Information Source - Germany Weighs Biometric Registration Options for Visa Applicants
^ ^a ^b Biometrics used to keep German Olympians safe - Software - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com
^ CCC publishes fingerprints of Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Home Secretary, Heise Online, published 2008-03-31, accessed 2008-04-17
^ http://www.detran.rj.gov.br/_documento.asp?cod=1438
^ Ynet: Biometric database to be formed in Israel
^ Digital World: Getting to know all about you and me
^ YNET: Biometric Database - A Danger to State Security
^ Video of the Mythbusters episode on how to hack fingerprint scanners

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