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The eyes have
it
by
Leila Marija Ugincius
Virginia
Business
September 2003
Who
would have thought a person’s eyes would turn out
to be his password in the 21st century? Sounds awfully
sci-fi and indeed it’s been a staple of science
fiction for decades, long before the gruesome scene
in “Minority Report” where fugitive Tom Cruise
has his eyeballs removed in order to avoid being identified
in public. Although it adds for some spine-tingling
scenes in movies and literature, many people would be
surprised to know that biometrics — the means to
authenticate personal and business information with
human features such as fingerprints and the iris of
the eye — is very much in the here and now.
Leading
the biometrics foray is SAFLINK Corp., a Bellevue, Wash.,
company founded in 1991. Although the firm is headquartered
in Washington state, the headquarters of its federal
and government work division — which makes up a
large part of the company’s clientele — is
based in Reston.
The
growing popularity of biometrics is due to both its
increased security as well as convenience over conventional
passwords, says Matt Shannon, director of the public
sector group for SAFLINK. “We focus on replacing
user names and passwords with stronger means of identification”
that use each person’s unique physical differences
to identity them, he says. “Things like your fingerprints,
the distance between your eyes and the most physically
unique thing about you: the structure of the [iris].”
SAFLINK’s
success has landed it numerous contracts from local
governments, hospitals and financial institutions. Two
of its biggest contracts have come from the U.S. government.
The U.S. House of Representatives Office of Legal Counsel,
a bipartisan office that provides services to all legislators
and possesses highly sought-after information, had been
looking into biometrics as a way to increase its network’s
security when the anthrax attacks occurred nearly two
years ago. “At the time [of the anthrax scare]
they had to send lawyers home with laptops,” with
information that wasn’t classified but was highly
sensitive, Shannon says.
SAFLINK
has provided the office with a variety of authentication
methods including iris and face recognition, as well
as fingerprint and voice verification. Earlier this
year the company was chosen by the Department of Defense
to evaluate and provide biometrics solutions for the
department’s smart card program. Smart cards look
like credit cards but have the processing power of a
small computer. Currently the smart cards are unlocked
with a pin number, but the military is looking into
replacing the pin with a biometric.
There
are four things the general public still doesn’t
understand about biometrics, Shannon says: it’s
here, it’s reliable, it’s inexpensive and
the government is already using it. Costs vary for various
types of biometrics authentication, because some means
are more accurate than others. For instance, “Very
little information can be taken about the shape of your
hand. But a lot of information can be taken from your
fingerprints.” In the world of privacy protection,
passwords offer the least security followed in ascending
order by speaker verification, facial recognition, fingerprints
and finally iris recognition, the most secure form of
biometrics authentication available. Says Shannon: “Unless
the human body sprouts a new body part, it’s going
to stay that way.”
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