Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Which biometric device would you most like to see?

Oct 17, 2005 8:42AM PDT

Which biometric device would you most like to see in common use?

Retinal scanner (why?)
Fingerprint reader (why?)
Hand reader (why?)
Voice recognition (why?)
Facial recognition (why?)
Other (what is it?)
None--this is way too sci-fi!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Fingerprint Scanner
Oct 18, 2005 6:24PM PDT

The new fingerprint scanner is the best.

- Collapse -
Thats a little too far!
Oct 18, 2005 9:28PM PDT

I see the ease of convienence and the overall tech-coolness of the thought of biometric scanners but that technology is a little much when it comes with that much "power". I don't want my eye or fingerprint or whatever it is to link to anything except my body. I personally think that it will make it a little to easy for "big brother" to track our every move. Besides a credit card, I.D, and a pin number are pretty easy to remember and maybe thats all we need. Just now anyway.

- Collapse -
totally new and better?
Oct 18, 2005 9:40PM PDT

I heard that a scan of the veins in your hand/finger is a new possibility and could be the best idea yet.
VeddwHouse

- Collapse -
do not want anything on me scanned?
Oct 18, 2005 9:45PM PDT

Look like this would fall under Privacy Act, no one need to know whats, whats about me. Unless I'm criminal. Do not know much about biometric device scanning but "Can someone hack into the system steal this information? or even copy image scan and use it"

Thanks,
MIM

- Collapse -
Actually, we already use Biometrics
Oct 18, 2005 10:24PM PDT

We use a biometric hand reader for our time clock system. What it does is a combination of read the back of the hand, comparing it to an average of the last several reads, and a pin number. Seems to work pretty well for us.

PitViper

- Collapse -
which is better
Nov 13, 2011 2:07PM PST

My company uses finger print time clocks and when I press my thumb for half of a second it doesn't detects rather I have to keep my thumb for atleast one full second.

- Collapse -
Not For Me None is best
Oct 18, 2005 10:39PM PDT

Seems this has become another hot issue. I don't think this is for me. Still it will happen one day. Right now it an expensive add-on, but this will change I'm sure.
Just like all the other technology we didn't need or some didn't want. I see the problem with this technology.
I won't buy it just like cellphones, GPS, PDA, Bluetooth, sat. TV and all the other junk technology I have not bought.
Guess I old fashioned, but I like that way.

- Collapse -
Handprint Reader
Oct 18, 2005 10:40PM PDT

Because it would be the easiest, just slap your hand down and go.

- Collapse -
None. Outlaw use of SSN for identification.
Oct 18, 2005 11:53PM PDT

We don't need another excuse to have Big Brother following us around. Anyone read ''Animal Farm'' or ''1984''? Remember Social Security said from the beginning that their card was not for identification and now all the businesses in the country want your number for their computers. Each business issues their own account numbers. Why should we trust businesses any more than they trust us? Look at all the data sharing that the health care providers and insurance industries have on us. Also, when new technologies arise for security, then someone always finds a way to sneak through it, ie. computer hackers. We need to impose security on personal identification like the Europeans do. They don't have a universal number (like SSN) to identify business accounts and they don't have near the problems with identity theft that we do in U.S..

- Collapse -
Biometrics - Of course
Oct 19, 2005 12:20AM PDT

I am tired of identy theft, POS fraud, thinking that signing a credit card is protection, ATM fraud, Credit Card frsud, all easily preventable with a biometric ID.

The problem is not biometrics, its the public's non understanding and even fear of it. Thats what needs to be fixed before we can deploy biometrics.

I am a 20 year security industry participant in the manufacturing and sales of building electronic access control. Biometrics are not new and definately identify the person being controlled at the door for access allowed, by time, date,location and also logged and tracked. This absolutely positivre ID of the person is something not easily done by cards, PIN or photo ID.

Its nearly impossible to forge a fingerprint biometric and easy to add it onto a card as a portable database. The reader simply sees your finger and matches whats on your card to it.

You have personally enrolled the fingerprint during the card creation. Airport ID for flying is now experimenting with this and so are smart card vendors.
Lets use what the Security industry has been using for 20 + years so we can be sure who the person is and what privileges they have just by a simpl,e fingerprint biometric.

Neil Licht

- Collapse -
Multiple identification!
Oct 19, 2005 12:26AM PDT

Read most of responses, so many objections to this and that method. I do not see how any one method is going to be seen as thoroughly reliable.

Absurdly, on the evidence of current scientific knowledge, the ideal would seem to be DNA. Slight problem maybe.

Spit on the ATM, wait two days for the analysis, take your cash, and go.

I think I might want a password too though, just in case!

- Collapse -
Pick a Finger
Oct 19, 2005 1:19AM PDT

Unfortunatly, most of us have no idea which biometric device can be duplicated, given the resource to do so, which im sure terrorists have. I would think though the finger print might be one of the hardest to sneek passed the systems if you randomly use different fingers. Only the person that gave the print would know which finger to use. Not only does the print have to match, but the right finger has to be used also, making it all the more difficult to try and beat the control system. Although it would be a good system to use because there are not supposed to be two alike in the world, but using the same finger for every person makes the posssiblity of duplication at some point in time in the future possible.

Rescue

- Collapse -
Biometric device
Oct 19, 2005 2:55AM PDT

The fingerprint reader seems to be the logical choice as it is already established everyone has individual fingerprints and this type of system would be easy to set up and maintain.

- Collapse -
Retinal scanner
Oct 19, 2005 2:59AM PDT

It seems harder to duplicate.........Max

- Collapse -
Biometrice Device (Retinal scanner)
Oct 19, 2005 3:03AM PDT

If I had to use a Biometric device I would use a Retinal scanner. The structure of your retina does not and can not be changed eaisly without eye damage (use of a laser device to manipulate the surface of the retina for forgery).I know if it ever became popular in use someone would find a way to be able to produce forgeries with it.But I think good old green cash is still better. Big Brother can't keep track of it as eailsy that way.

- Collapse -
which biometric device ?
Oct 19, 2005 4:53AM PDT

I would go for the face, how many have no fingers ?
or that have a vioce that we can not understand ?
the eyes well we have the blind ,people with contact
lenses ,it is a hard thing to answer ,for how many people use their toes ? we have great painters that
have to use their toes to paint as they have no hands,
and they also use a keyboard,so it goes on and on ,do we have an answer ? how about when we are born and get fitted with a computer chip . could that be the answer ? or is it all to sci-fi ?. Yohan.

- Collapse -
It's grotesque!
Oct 19, 2005 5:34AM PDT

The very thought of such a thing angers me.

- Collapse -
None of the above
Oct 19, 2005 6:52AM PDT

Having public biometrics will jsut make criminals that much more desperate in wanting to pop your eye-ball out of your head or chop off your finger instead of taking your bank card and SS number. This would just add more to an already growing list of criminals who are getting smarter.

- Collapse -
criminals will be taking fingerprints
Oct 19, 2005 7:11AM PDT

in an ironic reversal, criminals would become fingerprint experts, if biometrics relied solely on fingerprint identification... guaranteed.

Also, what happens if you get a cut?

Biometrics will much more likely be a convenience than the rule, at least for a decade or so until that technology matures.

- Collapse -
Biometrics as ID verification
Oct 19, 2005 8:06AM PDT

I believe biometrics could solve the problem of identity theft, especially if two or more methods (Iris scanning, fingerprint scanning, facial recognition, handprint scanning) are used together to verify conventional ID methods such as drivers licenses, credit cards, or social security numbers. All too often, the ONLY ID I'm asked for is my social security number, which, by now, has been shared with hundreds, if not thousands, of merchants and government entities- so it has to be the LEAST reliable method of identification.
To protect my identity, I believe it's going to become crucial to make biometrics universally used.

- Collapse -
None of the above...
Oct 19, 2005 8:15AM PDT

Thought police and black helicopters, of course.

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"
- Benjamin Franklin

- Collapse -
it depends
Oct 19, 2005 8:24AM PDT

well, it mostly depends on the activity more secure things (banks etc) would probably need facial because it proabably too easy to copy the rest of them (e.g.- just wait till someone touches something and go lift the fingerprint). Iris would probably be also good in a kind of safe situiation. i personally think the fingerpint is kind of risky (i am a fingerprint system user myself) due to sometimes people get totally crazy and would actually think about chopping of your finger just to get into ur computer or w/e. hand recognition is again a little too easy to copy, and the others i dont personally like, voice is stupid who would want to keep saying something loud into a machine just to get into your bank account or w/e it is. so in conclusion i would say facial because its safe as in people cant really cut of your face and copy it! and its proably the easiest as well

- Collapse -
Retinal Scan
Oct 19, 2005 9:00AM PDT

I would vote for the retinal scan. I am a leukemia survivor and during my chemotherapy, my finger prints virtually disappeared. For about 4 months, if we were using fingerprint readers, I would have been out of luck boing anything.

- Collapse -
fingerprint
Oct 19, 2005 10:50AM PDT

This technology is already perfected by law enforcement. Anyone with a criminal history is in the database already and the program would be closer to availability and lower in cost than any other in my opinion. I think it would be good for credit card/check/debit card transactions in the retail industry as well as online to protect from fraud. A simple small device to the right or left of the keypad to protect my credit?...I'm for it!

- Collapse -
I vote for a combo of IRIS scan, BP and Colormetrics
Oct 19, 2005 7:28PM PDT

I believe that, even better and, parenthetically, more difficult to forge than a retinal scan would be an Iris Scan. Now, such a scan would have to be such that it ensured that the iris being scanned was, in fact, an alive iris, hence the bloodpressure sacn. This would pretty well exclude contact lenses, however, not entirely. That is why thre would also have to be an accompanying colorimetric multi-level scan, to ascertain that there were no background layers of non-matching color.
SO, you say, why not fingerprints? Too easy to falsify with a fingeerprinted finger 'condon,' which, alas would pass the bloodpressure scan. Hence it would not be able to discern between a 'real' fingerpring and a ;'forged' one.
Retinal scanning is satisfactory for the noncognoscenti, but anyone with decent technology can circumvent this process. I will not go into how - find out for yourself.
Voice analysis would have been great - until about 1970. Digital voice altering algorithms are so advanced today that you can forget this before you even think about it.

- Collapse -
Retinal Scanner
Oct 19, 2005 11:00PM PDT

it more clean, just a look to the eye or the lens and thats it. no need to touch anything. Finger prints can be left on the scanner promoting a next level of identity theft.

- Collapse -
What Biometric Device Would I Like to See?
Oct 20, 2005 4:53AM PDT

At this time frame, with all the spam/hacker/worms etc, I would just rather stay with password protection. Besides, I have this paranoia about biometrics and privacy rights issues.

- Collapse -
Biometric Device Preferences
Oct 20, 2005 8:18AM PDT

Hand Recognition will prevail over time. Beyond the unique characteristics of each individual's "print," there are other characteristics in the hand that will help identify users. It also allows for certain items that can happen to a hand over time to be recognized. To take a hold of a door handle for example as you enter a government building would allow you access without dealing with an overweight security guard. It would be the same when you shop. They scan you hand and it immediately registers on your bank account. We'll have to wait and see how this all shakes out, but look to 2012 - 2015 for it all to gain momentum.

- Collapse -
Retitnal
Oct 20, 2005 4:38PM PDT

Because if its proved foolproof it should be the easiest and fastest ID proof.
Paul Roantree

- Collapse -
I work in this Field - there ARE better options already.
Oct 21, 2005 2:13AM PDT

Whether or not you agree with Biometrics is a personal issue. However, there has been newer technology, and it is well understood that Fingerprints are not reliable. Iris and Retina are reliable, but not everyone wants to scan their eyes everyday.

Iaccess Systems in Long beach has the exclusive rights to Japanese Technology which scans your finger Blood Veins - which like finger prints - are unique to each individual, but do not change with age. This provides a less than one in a million false acceptance rate - same as Iris and Retina scanning. This system has been used in Japan for 4 years now successfully.