Biometric Technology Subcommittee

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Discipline Overview:

The Biometric Technology (BiT) Subcommittee is a hybrid committee, encompassing a cross section of technology and its real-world application.  This subcommittee provides biometric resource knowledge to all IAI disciplines, providing awareness to practitioners on available technology as well as future capabilities that will shape the future of forensic and biometric identification.  It also tracks current biometric and forensic use-cases and standards of interest to the IAI membership.


Biometric Technology Chair

Bethany Retton, WV, USA

Committee Members

Return to Forensic Disciplines

What are Biometrics?

ISO/IEC 2382-37:2022(E) defines biometrics as “automated recognition of individuals based on their biological and behavioral characteristics." This involves the automated encoding and comparisons of human physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, palm prints, facial features, irises, voice, DNA, hand geometry, and even behavioral characteristics, such as gait and keystroke identification. Applications for biometric identification (one-to-many search) and verification (one-to-one comparison) include secure transportation needs such as airports, secure financial transactions, physical access control, user authentication for computer systems and mobile phones, and of course identity management for law enforcement and national security.

Difference Between Biometrics and Forensic Science:

Biometrics provide an automated means of identity management, identification and verification, while the goal of forensic science is to provide evidence for criminal investigations. The intersection of these two worlds can be found in the capture of tenprint cards for management of criminal history information, and then using the same database for latent print searches.

Criminal Justice Use-Cases for Biometrics:

One of the most common examples of biometrics in the criminal justice system is the use of Automated Biometric Identification Systems (ABIS) for criminal identification across several modalities, commonly fingerprint, face, and iris. Other examples include mobile fingerprint capture devices used by law enforcement for identification of subjects they encounter in the field, and probes for facial recognition from closed-circuit video recordings. 
 
Iris recognition has been around for about 20 years and offers a viable alternative to face and fingerprint recognition. Emerging use-cases for iris recognition are for non-contact applications such as prisoner transport and release.

Qualifications:

Biometrics technology is somewhat of a hybrid of forensic science and computer science. There are no formal qualifications to be involved in the field, but an interest in technology is a plus. Our membership consists of former and current biometric and forensic examiners as well as computer scientists.  Examiners generally have formal education in forensic science combined with training to competency in their field of interest (friction ridge, face). On the technology side, our members largely have a formal educational background in information systems, computer science, and systems engineering. Interests include large-scale systems design, big data, data analysis, and data interchange and interoperability.


Standards:

Resources:

For more information about Biometric Technology, below are some helpful resources:

Informational Websites: 

Technology Evaluations:

Other Organizations Relevant to this Discipline:

Ideas for more Research Projects:

Journals that Publish Articles in this Discipline:

Information for Teachers: