Biometrics

Fingerprint overview

The fingerprint is a unique feature to an individual. It stays with a person throughout his or her life.

This makes the fingerprint the most reliable kind of personal identification because it cannot be forgotten, misplaced, or stolen. Fingerprint authorization is potentially the most affordable and convenient method of verifying a person's identity.

The lines that create a fingerprint pattern are called ridges and the spaces between the ridges are called valleys. It is through the pattern of these ridges and valleys that a unique fingerprint is matched for verification and authorization.

The fingerprint pattern is captured by fingerprint sensors. Fingerprint sensors work by taking a snapshot of a fingerprint and saving it into an image file. From the image, fingerprint recognition algorithm extracts unique features of each fingerprint and saves them in the database. For fingerprint verification, features of an input fingerprint are compared to the features of a specific fingerprint data in the database.

By comparing similarity between two feature sets, it is decided whether the two fingerprints match or not.