Your Computer Knows Who You Are
Biometrics is a term used mostly in reference to fingerprints, retinal scans, and facial recognition. Biometrics is a way to identify exactly who a person is, by comparing a unique biological feature to those already in a registered database. Biometrics is nothing new; people have been using fingerprints as a means of identification for literally thousands of years. The ancient Chinese would sign a document with their handprint or fingerprint rather than a name.
The first modern uses of fingerprinting began as far back as 1877 when Sir William James Herschel used fingerprints to prevent fraud. Since that time, our methods of and uses for biometrics have advanced quite far. The government uses facial recognition software to identify immigrants, fingerprints help police catch criminals, and retinal scans are used to keep high-security buildings safe.
Already, we are seeing the use of biometrics in computers as well as these other applications. Many models of laptops come with a fingerprint scanner, and soon our other computer devices may have biometric capabilities. This is a growing field in computers because it is more secure and very easy to use.
Internet security, especially password security, is a big concern and companies are developing new ways of keeping our information secure. The most promising one, however, is biometrics. Fingerprint scanners are compact and easy to add to any computer, but retinal scanners and facial recognition are both a few years away from being widely available to the public.
Biometric security software will not allow anyone to access a computer who is not in the database. Therefore, even if someone knew the password for your computer, he or she would never be able to use your computer unless you added his or her biometric data to the list of allowed users. This would eliminate the need for automatically saving passwords, master passwords, and all the other ways people secure their various passwords.
Then again, it could easily become a hassle if made standard on all computers. You would never be able to let your friend quickly use your computer (or tablet, smartphone, etc.) to look something up unless you had previously registered their biometric data. It would also make public computers impossible. Libraries and Internet cafes would no longer be able to have computers set up for anyone to use because they would not be in the biometrics data system.
Biometric security in all computers is an intriguing idea and we will no doubt see much more of it in the future. Unfortunately, it could also cause more problems than it solves.
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