A gentle introduction to Thoughtful Biometrics — Part 1
This article is first in an introductory series leading up to the Thoughtful Biometrics Workshop 8,10,12 March 2021.
Biometrics already play a critical role in our lives, but their utility will increase rapidly over the next decade. We must become aware of the risks and benefits of biometrics in a remote-first world. Such awareness has 3 parts:
- Recognition that biometrics have been and will continue to be used
- Biometrics require liveness for their effective application
- Discussion involves a multi-disciplinary community
We will present a series of “Biometrics 101” articles leading up to the Thoughtful Biometrics Workshop. Over the next weeks, we will look at how different biometric modalities (face, fingerprint, voice, iris & DNA) have been used, are being used and are planned to be used in various use cases around the world.
Use of biometrics depends on two aspects: identity and liveness. First, biometric data is a representation of your identity: your facial features, your fingerprint details, your DNA sequence, etc. Second, liveness means that the data was provided legitimately to a sensor. These two aspects are strongly coupled but often conflated. For example, the photo in your passport is just a representation of your identity but its presentation by you to a passport officer is critical ensuring that you are a live person, presenting yourself in person and the passport itself legitimately via physical presence. Confidence in a biometric reading is directly related to liveness: our confidence that the biometric sensor was not spoofed.
Our devices are already equipped with powerful biometric sensors and over the next decade they will provide liveness with more confidence. The devices will become more aware of their users even in the face of spoofing attacks. This means that they will be provide identity and liveness information with increased confidence even remotely. Each biometric modality, however, will differ in the accuracy of identity information and ability to resist spoofing will vary over time depending on anti-spoofing technologies. The up-and-down confidence for each biometric modality represents a continual arms race of attacks and then subsequent presentation attack countermeasures.
Over the next few weeks leading up to the Thoughtful Biometrics Workshop on the 8,10, & 12 March 2021, we will present a series of articles on each biometric modality, applications of biometrics and the associated risks. Articles will appear each day and culminate in a summary/overview just before the Workshop on 8 March 2021.
The associated risks will include the legal, technical and social issues relevant to each modality. For example, the use of facial biometrics and surveillance is a timely issue. We invite a robust discussion of the risks and benefits of facial biometrics at the Thoughtful Biometrics Workshop. For the first time, people from civil liberties organizations, biometric scientists and identity experts will gather to discuss the cross-sectional issues related to the growing use of biometric technologies. Please register for the workshop today!
- A gentle introduction to Thoughtful Biometrics — Part 1 (this article)
- Thoughtful Biometrics for Facial Recognition — Part 2
- Thoughtful Biometrics for Fingerprints — Part 3
- Thoughtful Biometrics for Iris — Part 4
- Thoughtful Biometrics for Voice — Part 5
- Thoughtful Biometrics for DNA — Part 6
- Thoughtful Biometrics Overview — Part 7
- What is Identity Management — Part 8
