Biometrics

[Kenneth Brody]

Fairlight wrote:
> 
> When asked his whereabouts on Fri, Jun 04, 2004 at 05:03:44PM -0400,
> Nancy Palmquist took the fifth, drank it, and then slurred:
> >
> > The biometric thing does not keep a picture of your fingerprints, it
> > translates the nature of your print into a unique number or code of
> > somekind.
> >
> > I agree - how is that different than showing a picture ID?
> 
> I'd assume that to be reliable it must be the equivalent of a unique digital
> signature--sort of like MD5 or SHA1 for fingerprint patterns.  If it's
> indeed unique to each person, that could be construed as medical
> information.
[...]

Well, of course it's going to be "unique to each person".  Otherwise,
it's not a very good ID, is it?

However, even the same finger, taken by the same scanner, will not
likely give identical data on more than one scan.  Every time you
scan the finger, you will probably get different biometric data.
(Unless you happen to place the finger with the exact same pressure
on the exact same place on the scanner, causing the scanner to give
an identical image.)

-- 
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------------+
| Kenneth J. Brody        | www.hvcomputer.com |                             |
| kenbrody at spamcop.net | www.fptech.com     | #include <std_disclaimer.h> |
+-------------------------+--------------------+-----------------------------+