Biometrics is now one of the most popular, reliable and promising identification technologies. It is making inroads into numerous application areas (such as e-passports and e-IDs, loyalty and frequent traveler programs) and is extensively deployed in education, healthcare, banking and finance and many more applications.
The reasons underlying the popularity of biometrics are obvious: reliability, security, efficiency, and high user acceptance. Unlike other identification techniques, biometrics deals with human identity tightly bound to a specific person.
In general terms, biometrics is the science of measuring and analyzing human physiological and behavioral features. Specifically, biometrics is used as the core of solutions and systems that automatically establish and/or verify the identity of humans based on their distinct biometric features.
The most widespread biometric technology is fingerprinting. It dominates the global market, accounting for about 58% of all biometric revenues.
The second most popular identification technology is face recognition (15-20% of global biometric revenues). It is extensively used in e-passports and other identifying documents. The third and fourth most popular technologies (5-7% of global biometric revenues) are iris and hand geometry identification.
