What’s next?

Abstract

Biometrics are just a concept, plus lots of data, and way too much confusion. We have seen several different biometrics in a variety of stages of technological development, from obsolescence (Bertillon) through commercial product (e.g., iris) to speculative research (odor) [155]. We have tried to show that each biometric has its own advantages and we can predict that technology advances and medical discoveries will lead to development of new means of biometric identification in the future. In fact, almost any physical property of the human body (density, reflectance, absorbtion, emission, chemical composition), if it can be defined and measured with sufficient precision, could act as a biometric, particularly when it can be considered as a spatial variable or repeating temporal signal. Such signals are prone to difficulties of normalization, susceptibility to long-term variations, and non-individual factors; this is the case with all the established biometrics. Biometrics therefore presents some very difficult problems and is nowhere near the stage at which it is currently portrayed in movies. The technological developments in biometrics are a tiny piece of the technological puzzle that can increase safety and security in everybody’s day-to-day life.