Fingerprint Biometrics: Basic Concepts

Capacitive Fingerprint Readers

Because the skin is a good conductor of electricity, this type of reader has an array of capacitors that generate an image of the fingerprint.

Thus the ridges of the fingerprint in contact with the capacitor array have higher capacitance, while the valleys have lower capacitance.

Advantages:

• They have a small size.
• They are low cost.
• Can handle dry and wet prints.

Disadvantages:

• They are very sensitive to static electricity.
• And they are characterized by low accuracy

Ultrasonic Fingerprint Readers

They are characterized by using ultrasound for fingerprint detection.

Advantages:

• In addition to reading the fingerprint, they allow to recognize if it is a live finger or not.
• They provide very good biometric information of the fingerprint.

Disadvantages:

• Larger than capacitive readers.
• High cost readers.
• They are slow in the fingerprint scanning process.

Optical Fingerprint Readers

This type of readers are characterized because they use an array of phototransistors or photodiodes that convert light energy into electrical energy to characterize a fingerprint.

The fingerprint is then illuminated by an array of LEDs in the process of scanning the finger.

Advantages:

• The images obtained with this type of reader is of very good quality.

Disadvantages:

• This type of readers have a high cost.

According to these characteristics, the readers are classified as FBI-compatible or non-FBI-compatible, based on their accuracy and image quality.

Applications using fingerprint biometrics

Thanks to the accuracy, speed and low intrusion of the use of fingerprints in the recognition of people, we find a number of applications for biometrics with fingerprint, such as the following examples:

• As identification of people in voting tables in electoral processes or in other voting processes in the congresses of the countries.
• It is widely used in access control systems of people, because it does not allow the impersonation of people at the time of entry or exit.
• In the banking environment, which lends itself well to the impersonation of people for all kinds of frauds, the registration and matching of fingerprints for personal identification has become infallible.
• Personal identification on cell phones: Lately, the use of fingerprints for unlocking cell phones has expanded, as well as for approving online purchases from mobile devices.

In conclusion, fingerprint biometrics is currently one of the most reliable processes in the unique detection of people, widely used by different agencies and applications worldwide, hence the great importance of knowing its operation and characteristics.

This article is part of the knowledge dissemination system of ITSoftware SAS.

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