Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Biometrics and digital identity (16 Oct 2005) OK, so fingerprints aren't all they're cracked up to be, but isn't there some other more reliable biometric? Yes there is: iris scanning - which uses low-level infrared light to photograph your iris - is by far the most accurate biometric system widely available and yet even these systems often have difficulty correctly identifying those with very dark eyes. And, as the c't survey showed, even iris scanners with so called 'liveness detection' can be fooled by a high quality photograph with a small hole cut for the pupil, or printed contact lenses. Besides, as Emily Finch, a Reader in Law at the University of East Anglia, points out, "The more people rely on the production of a particular piece of identification to verify identity, the less vigilance people will exercise themselves - that's the problem." As an example of this in action she relates how when she and a male colleague swapped chip and PIN cards and went shopping nobody picked up on the obvious difference between the sex of the name on the card and the person using it. Article URL: http://www.nestafuturelab.org/viewpoint/art64.htm Read 138 more articles from NESTA Futurelab sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Engaging children with special needs: a case study of St Luke's          Books about Usability | Information Architecture | Information Visualisation | Technology History This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy