The Wonderful Word Of Biometrics and What It Can Do For Your Business or Family

The word biometric is a combination of two Greek words. Bio meaning "life" and metron which means "measure". In modern life biometrics are a means of comparing a form of human input against a stored copy of the source of that input. Now that's all sounding very complicated isn't it? Greek words and storing copies of input data.

The easiest way to understand biometrics is to give you an actual example of how it works. Remember in thos sci-fi movies where a guy would stand in front of a computer and it would scan his hand/face/eyeball. That's biometrics at work. The computer or electronic device has a stored copy of the biometric data for a specific person. When the person uses the biometric device it compares the live "version" of the data with the stores copy of the biometric data. If they match then the biometric device will allow the user access to whatever was secured by the device itself.

What types of biometric data can be measured? Your biometric signature could be measured with:

• Fingerprint

• Face

• Voice

• Iris

• Hand geometry

• DNA

• Handwriting
  

From the above list fingerprint, iris scans and hand geometry scans have the highest success rate and are the hardest to spoof and therefore offer a higher security rating for both home and office computer users.

So all that's wonderful. You now understand the basics of how biometrics work but how does that affect your home or office computer? Lots of people think that biometrics should only be used by the military or massive multi-national companies. In many cases it is but biometrics is starting to find more and more fans amongst home computer users.

Why?

Well people might steal, hack or guess your password for example. They're going to have a tough time stealing your fingerprint or voice pattern to access your computer.

The most common form of computer biometrics is the fingerprint scanner which you can have as part of your keyboard, mouse or even as a standalone scanner. Some of the new business laptops from HP, IBM (Lenovo) and Dell are offering biometric security features on their laptops. Laptop theft is on the increase and companies are doing anything possible to protect their data - from fancy encryption programs such as Safeboot to biometric fingerprint scanners on their laptops. All in order to prevent individual or massive identity theft.

So do biometrics have a place in your home computer scheme? It all depends on your circumstances. If you have valuable information stored on a laptop and you simply don't want strangers or visitors potentially having access to it then it's of value.

Concerned parents could also setup a biometric scanner on their family PC to make sure that the kids only have access when mom or dad gives it their thumbs up (well their fingerprint to be more exact :-)