Biometrics-based authentication and identification are emerging as the most reliable method to
authenticate and identify individuals. Biometrics requires that the person to be identified be
physically present at the point-of-identification and relies on `something which you are or you
do' to provide better security increased efficiency and improved accuracy. Automated
biometrics deals with physiological or behavioral characteristics such as fingerprints
signature palmprint iris hand voice and face that can be used to authenticate a person's
identity or establish an identity from a database. With rapid progress in electronic and
Internet commerce there is also a growing need to authenticate the identity of a person for
secure transaction processing. Designing an automated biometrics system to handle large
population identification accuracy and reliability of authentication are challenging tasks.
Currently there are over ten different biometrics systems that are either widely used or under
development. Some automated biometrics such as fingerprint identification and speaker
verification have received considerable attention over the past 25 years and some issues like
face recognition and iris-based authentication have been studied extensively resulting in
successful development of biometrics systems in commercial applications. However very few
books are exclusively devoted to such issues of automated biometrics. Automated Biometrics:
Technologies and Systems systematically introduces the technologies and systems and explores
how to design the corresponding systems with in-depth discussion. The issues addressed in this
book are highly relevant to many fundamental concerns of both researchers and practitioners of
automated biometrics in computer and system security.
