What To Consider When Choosing A Biometric Modality

What To Consider When Choosing A Biometric Modality

If the Identity Verification Services that your organisation uses are to be successful, you will need to ensure – among other things – that you choose the right biometric modality. This will entail careful comparisons of different modalities’ strengths and weaknesses. When doing this, you will need to think about factors ranging from specification and convenience to usability and budget.

Which Biometric Modalities Exist?

You may consider various biometric modalities when trying to decide on the most suitable identity verification services. Fingerprint, finger vein, facial recognition, iris, signature, gait and voice solutions are all available. However, not every given modality will necessarily cater to all of your company’s requirements.

Nor is a particular modality likely to be equally effective in all conditions, or regardless of how one implements it. When implementing a biometric device, you should think about such factors as location, acceptability, ease of use and security. Furthermore, in some circumstances, you may need to combine multiple identity verification services to achieve optimal accuracy.

Only by picking the right biometric modality can you therefore hope to achieve the maximum benefits. Here are some factors to contemplate when making your choice.

• Accuracy. Few aspects of a biometric system are as important as its accuracy. Various criteria help to determine this, such as its error rate, identification rate, false acceptance rate (FAR) and false reject rate (FRR).
• Acceptability. User acceptance plays a crucial role in the success of biometric identity verification services. In certain cultures, users may not have a positive perception of specific biometric modalities – perhaps associating

Fingerprint Biometrics with crime, for example.

• Hygiene. If your organisation’s industry is one where infection control plays a critical part, is it wise on hygiene grounds to invest in contact-dependent biometric hardware? For these reasons, you may instead look to contactless biometric modalities.
• Cost-effectiveness. Cost will always be a vital consideration for firms comparing different identity verification services. The technology and hardware used in a given solution can greatly influence the expense incurred when buying and using it.
• Anti-spoofing capabilities. Direct attacks on biometric systems have become a greater concern as identity verification services have gained popularity. Such ‘spoofing’ attacks involve the would-be intruder interacting with the system input device to attempt to gain access. You should therefore look for strong anti-spoofing capability in the systems that you compare.

The above are some of the biggest factors that you need to think about when researching available identity verification services. Talk to the SmilePass team today, and we’ll help to ensure your firm receives the benefit of the right solution.