Hi Ali,

Interesting post! You mention that “Before adopting a biometrics system inside
the educational institutions or other facilities, it’s important to conduct a
comprehensive assessment that includes all concerns such as proportionality, fair
obtaining and processing, transparency, accuracy, security, retention, and privacy
impact assessment (Data Protection Commissioner, no date).”

Information Technology (IT) has exponentially grown the last couple of decades,
and modern society is characterised based on the development of IT (Rendulić,
2011). With increasing use of IT, the data protection and the data security are
becoming more difficult and challenge. Current security systems such as
passwords, tokens, PIN number, magnet cards, ID/Swipe card, etc. are not
sufficient enough to protect the data. Thus, the need for ironclad security is
became more vital, and those concerns increased the use of biometric technology
to replace traditional methods over data security.
Biometrics is the automated recognition of individuals and refers to technologies
for measuring and analysing their behavioural and biological characteristics
(Millett, 2010). The key point of the characteristics is that these characteristics are
unique to individuals to provide verification and identification of a person. The
need of biometrics systems is increased with the problems of the current security
systems. Using a password or token-based systems creates many problems such
as being lost, forgetting and the worse case is that they can easily be stolen and
used by intruders to access your data, bank account, social media account etc.
(Savvides, n.d.)
There are many examples of biometric systems that are used in business, and
personal security such as fingerprint, face recognition, voice recognition, iris scan,
retina scan, DNA, palmprint, hand geometry, vein recognition signatures, gait,
keystrokes and gait to identify individuals. The component of biometric systems
devices include a reader or a scanner to record the biometric factor being
authenticated, a software system that converts those data into the standard
digital format and compares match points with stored data and a database to
store biometric data for comparison (TechTarget, 2017).
Biometric systems are based on the biometric identifies which depends on the
uniqueness of factor. For instance, fingerprints are considered to be highly unique
for each person. Additionally, it is one of the important feature of the factor that
biometric factor is static or stable such as fingerprints don’t change over the life
(TechTarget, 2017). That makes biometric systems less vulnerable compared with
the nonbiometric factors such as password or tokens, which can be compromised
or breached. While biometric systems provide a more secure solution over data
protection and security, they also have some vulnerabilities like incorrect
recognition or failure to recognise individuals correctly. For example, it is easy to
discover fingerprint systems from the touched surface and can be easily defeated
using wafer thin gelation and silicon (Ekwonwune Emmanuel, 2016).
As a conclusion, there is no such security system that is completely solid and
hundred percent trustworthy. The primary advantage of biometric systems is that
biometric systems use physiological or behavioural characteristics for recognition
of the individuals and those characteristics should not be duplicate.

References
Ekwonwune Emmanuel, N. E. N. C. A. N., 2016. Vulnerability of Biometric Authentication System.
[Online]
Available at: http://www.rroij.com/open-access/vulnerability-of-biometric-authenticationsystem-
IJIRSET-2016-0503006.pdf
[Accessed 11 February 2018].

Millett, J. N. P. a. L. I., 2010. In: W. B. Committee, ed. Biometric Recognition: Challenges and
Opportunities . s.l.:PAPERBACK.

Rendulić, D. I., 2011. In: Basic Concepts of Information and Communication Technology. Zagreb: Open
Society for Idea Exchange (ODRAZI).

Savvides, P. M., n.d. Introduction to Biometric Technologies and Applications. [Online]

Available at: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~jzhu/class/18200/F06/L10A_Savvides_Biometrics.pdf
[Accessed 11 February 2018].

TechTarget, 2017. biometrics. [Online]

Available at: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/biometrics
[Accessed 11 February 2018].