Strength & Weaknesses of different BTs

Various biometric technologies have been described. There is no single biometric technique that outperforms all of them. Every technique has its own merits and demerits and usage of any technology is context dependent. Below we are giving strengths and weakness of each technology for comparison.

Strengths of Facial Recognition

• Effective for surveillance applications.


• Provides a first level “scan” within an extremely large, low-security situation.


• Easy to deploy, can use standard CCTV hardware integrated with face recognition software.


• Passive technology does not require user cooperation and works from a distance.


• May be able to use high quality images in an existing database.

Weaknesses of Facial Recognition

• Lighting, age, glasses, and head/face coverings all impact false reject rates.


• Even in surveillance applications, lower accuracy results in multiple candidates return in large populations. As a result, secondary processing is required for surveillance operations.


• Privacy concerns: people do not always know when their picture/image is being taken and being searched in a database — or worse, being enrolled in a database. Can be used without explicit opt-in permission

Strengths of Fingerprints

• Widely accepted by civil law enforcement and forensic government applications (the AFIS database); as such, fingerprints are excellent for background checks.


• Can provide a relatively low false rejection rate and false acceptance rate when used in populations with a low incidence of “outliers” (however, large groups or groups of varied by race and gender are an issue).


• Wide range of vendors and solutions.


• Ability to enroll multiple fingers.

Weaknesses of Fingerprints

• Fingerprint is not as accurate as iris recognition


• Fingerprint false accept rate varies by vendor, and is approximately 1 in 100,000.


• Iris recognition false accepts rate is 1 in 1.2 million statistically.


• Most high-end fingerprint systems measure approximately 40-60 characteristics; iris recognition looks at about 240 characteristics.

Strengths of Hand Geometry

• Currently being used for functions such as access control, employee time recording and point of sale applications.


• Fairly easy to use.


• Reasonably high acceptance among users and it is opt-in.


• Works in challenging environments.

Weaknesses of Hand Geometry

• Does not support 1: all matching with large databases.


• Weather, temperature and medical conditions such as pregnancy or certain medications can affect hand size.


• Hand size and geometry changes over time, especially in the very young and the very old.


• People are reluctant to place hand where many others have touched (hygiene issue).


• Extreme sizes are not accommodated in all hand readers.


• Fairly expensive and large equipment is required.

Strengths of Iris Recognition

• Hands-free operation.


• Proven highest accuracy: iris recognition had no false matches in over two million cross-comparisons, according to Biometric Product Testing Final Report


• Ability to handle very large populations at high speed: Iris recognition can handle very large 1: all searches within extremely large databases


• Convenient: all a person needs to do is look into a camera for a few seconds.


• A video image is taken which is non-invasive and inherently safe.


• The iris itself is stable throughout a person’s life (approximately from the age of one); the physical characteristics of the iris don't change with age.

Weaknesses of Iris Recognition

• Not a very user friendly.


• Can not recognize the person from the crowd like facial system.