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Biometric Authentication: Use Cases and Advantages

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What is Biometric Authentication?

Biometric authentication refers to the process of using unique biological characteristics such as the face, fingerprints and voice patterns, to authorize an individual for access to a personal account, app, device or other digital assets.

Other less popularly used personal traits for authentication include palm veins, palm print, DNA, hand geometry and odour/scent. Research is opening up ways for new methods of biometric verifications through ear shape or facial thermography.

A biometric authentication system compares biometric measurements and behavioral traits to a database containing authentic, stored data to recognize individuals. This is usually an automated process and is extremely useful in verifying identities, confirming that someone is who they say they are.

Liveness detection is also an integral part of the authentication process, determining whether a real-life person is present at the time of authentication and that a captured image is not from a still or flat image.

As an extremely secure way of identifying users, biometrics are becoming a popular method, expected to replace more traditional authentication and security methods such as password-based, knowledge-based or multi-factor authentication. Due to high vulnerability to security lapses, the safety of such methods are easily compromised either intentionally or unintentionally.

Gartner predicts that identity verification systems will replace traditional authentication platforms in more than half of all global enterprises by 2023.

Popular Methods of Biometric Authentication

Facial biometric authentication
Fingerprint and Iris Scanning
Voice Recognition
Behavioral Characteristics

Advantages of Biometric Authentication

Biometric authentication makes it possible for online businesses to verify and authenticate users for account logins, financial transactions, and other use cases.

Ease of Use and Accuracy

The foremost benefit of using biometric authentication is convenience. It is a non-intrusive, one-step process that takes limited processing time. Users do not want to go through complex logins and verification procedures every time an account or device needs to be accessed.

Using biometrics instead of lengthy passwords leads to better user experience and smooth onboarding. For instance, an iris scan or fingerprint scan takes less time to enter and be accepted especially by smartphones. For voice recognition, ultrasound scanners are expected to become common in the near future as well.

This convenience factor leads to the possibility of building security systems that can authenticate people at scale. User-friendly systems onboard customers easily, without having to educate or train them, and are increasingly available in most hand-held devices.

Identity verification through the use of biometrics also increases chances of accuracy. High security threats and compliance requirements urge businesses to explore and install robust authentication systems with the ability to minimise failure rates.

Safety and Privacy

Threats such as phishing and social engineering have become common as companies move towards rapid digitization. It becomes highly relevant, therefore, for companies to be able to better manage identity infrastructure for compliance in areas of security and privacy.

Safeguarding computers, online transactions, website portals, emails and other digital processes is of utmost importance. Currently, due to high risk of cybercrimes, digital identity theft and account takeover fraud, identifying users is becoming a serious challenge for most businesses.

Authentication using biometric measurements lowers associated risks of cyber breaches, simply because of the difficulty to forge biological characteristics such as fingerprints and iris scans. Imposters are especially reluctant to try to fool face-based authentication protocols, making fraud detection and fake attempts at logins easy to catch.

Identity Management

Traditional identity screening methods have proven to be less successful in achieving accurate and reliable results. Login details, address confirmations and even social security numbers cannot confirm that a person is who they say they are. Digital identity theft and other cyber breaches have increased the possibility of having all such personal information stolen.

Biometric authentication can solve this problem by opening up ways of online verifications that are much more reliable and accurate. Duplication of unique body traits such as fingerprints is less likely, and hacking into such data is next to impossible.

Biometrics can also be used as a means of secondary authentication, supplementing a traditional method such as password login. For high-risk transactions such as online purchases or bill payments, businesses can opt for biometric prompts to ensure that only authorised users are requesting access.

Industry Use Cases

Biometric technology is being applied to a wide variety of use cases to improve safety, efficiency and identity management.

Travel

The travel industry is experiencing a revolution as checkpoints at airports and hotels are being streamlined by integrating biometric technology. Passengers can now onboard flights without showing a passport or supporting documents. A mere facial scan can screen and authenticate travellers based on existing databases.

Similarly, hospitality businesses and hotel owners are leveraging the use of biometrics in the form of self-check ins to scan visitors and integrate customer data into one point. Not only does this lead to smooth customer experiences, it ensures the safety of both businesses and individuals involved in the transaction.

Government and Law Enforcement

Some National Identity Cards now make use of biometrics to beef up security features by including chips that house data on digital photographs, fingerprints and other biometric data. This mitigates risks involved with forged identity documents that compromise privacy and anonymity.

The use of unique biometrics is also being expanded to forensics and criminal identification. Law enforcement agencies are making use of large facial and other databases to follow high-risk individuals, track activity and screen large crowds for suspicious activity.

Surveillance at airports is also being expanded from simply screening to actively looking for intruders that may be a threat to the country. This extensive use by the immigration department is improving security measures and reducing related costs.

The future outlook on the use of biometric authentication demonstrates tremendous value for businesses in terms of security, productivity and customer relationships. As a potent technology that opens up a plethora of use cases for all types of industries, there is an emerging need to regulate and manage its growth.

How E-Commerce sites can prevent scams over Black Friday and Cyber Monday

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For online businesses, customer authentication for internet payments is very crucial. An ever-increasing number of people apply for credit cards and shop online during the holiday season. With an increase in the usage of mobile phones, it is expected that 40% of all online shopping will likely be done through mobile devices.

On the other hand, the probability of fraud and account take over raises with this digital transformation, which is a matter of concern for all the stakeholders involved. Be it e-commerce sites selling products or customers making purchases, risk of scam and fraud threatens everyone. A 17% increase in fraudulent activities involving credit card fraud and chargeback scams was observed in 2018.

Cyber Mondays and Black Fridays provide a perfect environment for cybercriminals. According to an NRF survey, 164 million people plan to shop over a five-day Thanksgiving weekend and online sales alone are expected to reach $143 billion. With an increasing number of people shopping it becomes impossible to identify and deter frauds. Will it remain the same this year and years coming? Many e-commerce sites are researching ways that could help in the prevention of fraud.

One such solution that expert believes could come in handy is Biometric authentication.

What is BIometric Authentication?

Biometric Authentication secures web and mobile applications by seamlessly and continuously authenticating users based on their biometrics. While traditional authentication methods involve information that could be hacked using phishing and social engineering techniques, biometrics technology uses features that are unique to each user and can not be imitated, stolen or lost easily.

How Biometric Authentication system works?

Biometric Authentication technology uses biological data such as fingerprint, facial recognition, iris scan, and behavioral biometrics to approve any transaction by the user. With the synergy of Artificial Intelligence, the process has become really quick and legitimate customers are not obligated to put extra effort and time during the sign-in process.

The integration of facial verification and fingerprint pattern recognition systems in mobile phones has made it easy for customers to authenticate payments using biometrics. Since most of the online purchasing is done via smartphones, many e-commerce websites believe that online biometric authentication will be a great asset for the prevention of credit card fraud, identity theft, and chargeback scams.

Biometric Sign In and New Accounts Fraud

The holiday season is the best time for the fraudsters to carry out frauds, as the customers open new credit card accounts at great discounts. Owing to increased transactional activity, the chances for fraud detection reduces tremendously and fraudsters exploit the opportunity.

Using biometrics such as face or fingerprint provides an extra layer of security that is highly unlikely to be surpassed. When registering for a new account, the user will be prompted to enroll their face or fingerprints for the authentication in later stages of their journey on the online platform. Even if an intruder tries to access the newly created account, the system will flag suspicious activity.

Biometric Sign In and Chargeback Scams

While the holiday season is the ideal melting pot of chaos for both customers and sellers, this gives an ample amount of time for the criminals to find flaws in websites, databases, payment systems, and authentication/authorization systems. Once the criminals found a loophole in the system, it has a dreadful impact on the merchants- loss of merchandise, loss of customer trust, fake chargeback frauds, and the dumped chargebacks from the legitimate customers.

E-commerce platforms must take advantage of the most robust fraud prevention and ID validation technology to stop fraudsters from interrupting holiday sales. Online biometric authentication is the best way to defend against fraudsters. Once a user is authorized for the transaction using a biological feature, their consent is automatically linked, which reduces the probability of friendly fraud.

Sometimes it’s the small steps that make a big difference. Online marketplaces must adopt modern technology to stop chargeback frauds from happening.

Authorizing Merchants using Biometric Identification

While the payment systems are more vulnerable to scams and fraudulent activities, the merchant accounts are also exposed to criminals. Many criminals create fake merchant account on different online marketplaces and commit fraud. When a customer purchases something on these fake online stores, the fraudsters steal their credit card data and sell it on the dark web or use it to make illicit purchases from legitimate online stores.

Biometric authorization eliminates all these concerning threats. Biometric authentication means no passwords are involved, which means the user can’t be tricked into handing them over.

With an increase in online shopping trends, cybercriminals are evolving their fraud attacks at pace. The holiday season is the most vulnerable to these fraud attacks and many customers lose a small fortune during this period. Proactive detection and mitigation using biometric authentication can eliminate the costs to banks, merchants, customers, and credit card issuers. The financial institutes and online marketplaces must ensure that their systems are fully equipped to fight against cybercriminals and provide a seamless customer experience.

Biometric Authentication is Smart but AI Makes it Smarter – Here is How

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In the ongoing digital age security is a top priority concern of any organization. Data is a major resource for every organization so advanced security measures have to be taken to safeguard business data. Major data breach cases have hit some highly renowned companies leaving us with eyes wide open. Yahoo, Google, Facebook, etc have fallen prey to data breaches exposing vital data from millions of customers. Therefore, businesses are constantly looking for better alternatives to traditional security models.

Biometric authentication such as fingerprint, facial, iris scans is being utilized for authenticating employees at the workplace and identifying customers to fulfill KYC and KYB regulations. Biometrics has given a death blow to the good old method of authentication like passwords, PIN, and codes making us hassle-free of changing or remembering these codes. Biometrics is a multifactor authentication which with the help of AI can help develop data-driven security protocols. AI transforms biometric authentication to give birth to a dynamic security system for a business.

Biometric Identification- A Growing Trend

Biometric identification solutions have been in the spotlight in recent years. Following are the major factors behind this growing popularity:

Many countries around the world have already started making efforts to establish a biometric identification of their citizens.
Many organizations leveraging biometric identification for applications like employee attendance, door security, and logical access.
Manufacturers using a biometric ability (e.g. fingerprint face and iris recognition) on mobile and computing devices.

What is AI Biometrics?

Biometric technology use unique traits of particular part of the body comprising facial recognition, iris scan, fingerprint scan, etc.AI transform these informative distinctive traits into codes or make them more complex and easy to understand by the system. Person’s typing rhythm, walking pattern, voice, etc can be recognized to verify a person using AI biometrics.

Types of Biometric ID Validation:

Before going into the details of how AI can enhance biometrics let’s have a look at its types. The biometric technology comprises many different types, including but not limited to these:

Fingertip recognition:

Analyzing fingertip structures to identify users identity.

Iris recognition:

Detection of specific features in the iris of the eye

Face recognition:

The technology is based on features like nose width, chin, and jawline, using face recognition algorithms that map the face.

Voice recognition:

Used for speaker’s voice authentication

Palm recognition:

Detects vein patterns or hand geometry of the user

DNA matching:

DNA matching uses a physical sample of an individual such as blood, hair, or saliva to confirm their identity. DNA matching is widely used in forensic investigations due to its unparalleled accuracy.

Ear acoustic authentication:

The size and shape of every human ear are unique. The size and shape of human ears help in collecting sound waves and routing them with the help of the ear canal. Special earphones with a microphone can capture soundwaves reflected inside the ear canal. The reflected sound waves captured by the microphone are used for the identification of an individual.

How Can AI Transform Biometric Authentication System?

Artificial intelligence AI has become a fundamental aspect of our lives and demonstrates intelligence by machines. When employed with bio authentication data it can provide a genuine authentication solution making it difficult to be fooled by cybercriminals. AI and biometric ID validation can work together in the following ways:

AI-Powered Keystroke Dynamics

As the writing of everyone differs, typing pattern varies from person to person so it can help to identify and authenticate individual on the basis of typing pattern. With AI keystroke dynamics can identify people with the help of dwell time, speed, and fight time. Dwell time refers to the duration of a key being pressed whereas fight time is the interval between releasing key and pressing another key. This feature can also be used to enhance the multi-factor authentication system along with PIN numbers or passwords. AI systems can track information about the most frequently used keys to identify individuals.

AI-Powered Facial Recognition

Facial recognition is thought to be easily tricked with the help of a video or a picture of the owner. There are cases in which facial recognition systems can be fooled by the face of an owner’s sibling. Such incidents occur due to inaccuracies in 2D facial recognition. Law enforcement agencies are looking for better enhancements in biometric authentication as it fails at times due to the fact that criminal’s faces may not be fully visible in public places.

This is where AI comes into play. AI uses 3D biometrics for successful face detection of a person and learns from millions of images. AI can analyze the picture of old [reasons to create younger images. So this validates the fact that with AI and biometrics together more authentic model for face recognition can be created.

AI-Powered Voice Recognition:

Voice and speech recognition can be used for multiple tasks like answering queries, ordering products or playing music by certain smart home devices such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa. But this method fails in noisy backgrounds or can not recognize the voice of the user. Whereas AI can train such biometric systems using millions of voice samples of different users. Voice patterns can be analyzed such as speed, accent, tone, and pitch. So AI can evaluate a person’s biometric voice signature which is unique. This makes this process fast and accurate. AI-based speech recognition can be used in the workplace for authentication and attendance purposes.

AI-Powered Gait Detection:

The University of Manchester, AI promises an accuracy of 99.3% when used in gait detection. Gait detection as the name suggests is the walking pattern of individuals that can be detected using AI as it differs somehow. Gait detection can be a viable solution with the help of AI. Soil sensors can be used to detect the walking pattern of an individual. With the help of AI, it is possible to detect the movement of the march for the security of the airport and in healthcare to detect certain diseases.

How is AI Smarter?

Although biometrics are trusted for accurate authentication advanced technology like AI can be used to deceive this system. Fingerprint scanning can be fooled easily by AI-generated synthetic fingerprints a study suggests. The biometric system analyzes partial fingerprints to find matches with saved multiple fingerprints, as a user can scan multiple fingerprints in the device. The major flaw in the biometric system is the inaccurate generation of such fingerprints. With a hat of fingerprints, counterfeits created by AI can be more unique and accurate. Such fingerprints are used for testing every generated fingerprint until the target device is unlocked. This put several devices at risk of force attack resulting in identity theft and other digital scams. Likewise, AI and biometrics can be clubbed to create a secure biometric system. This combination can help to develop a secure system that can be used to mitigate risks and frauds.

Conclusion

Needless to say, biometric authentication is fostering a change in many business sectors and is being adopted widely over old methods of authentication. It is becoming critical to the development of many industries. Biometric technology along with AI is paving ways in identity verification procedures and mitigating security risks. People may still have some doubts regarding data privacy protection, biometrics already makes an impact on various fields of life and work.

AI and biometrics can precisely verify the identity of individuals based on their physiological and behavioral traits. Hence, business like financial institutes, education sector, healthcare can introduce AI-based biometrics for their workplaces and customers to offer user-friendly and secure authentication protocols. AI-powered biometrics may become mainstream soon as they provide more promising solutions. Biometric verification technology plays a vital role in providing security in different sectors so this technology must be secure enough.

Google Pay Transactions Just Got More Secure

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Previously, when you used Google Pay for transactions, it would only ask you to enter your PIN. Although it was a reliable measure, there were more loopholes in it. Over the last decade, biometric verification has become remarkably common. This is mainly because of the extra layer of security it provides to our smartphones, bank accounts, etc. By virtue of this additional protection, Google Pay has introduced biometric authentication for more secure transactions.

Starting with version 2.100, Google Pay is adding fingerprints and face authentication for money transfers. Google Pay is a platform for transacting money with your smartphone, without the hassle of a number of cards with every transaction. The reason for the addition of biometric authentication is the lack of proper biometric authentication for money transfer which was a security flaw. Just by providing a simple PIN, you would be able to perform money transactions via Google Pay.

Although Google Pay is launching this feature, it is only available for Android 10 users for now. This is due to the specific biometric API that is only available on Android 10. This feature may soon be coming to Android 9 as well. The biometric option can be accessed through the “Sending Money Settings” section of the app. Users can choose either the option of PIN or biometric authentication, or decide to keep both measures for added security. It is worth noting that the biometric feature is only available for money transactions and for NFC payments in stores, you still have to unlock your phone.

There are several advantages of biometric over the PIN-based security system. PIN numbers can be a bit difficult to remember and easy to crack at times. According to Google’s product manager for authentication, Steven Soneff, “You’re probably hearing advice about making sure that it’s complicated or that there’s a requirement to have certain characters that is just infuriating from a user point of view.”

At a later point in the future, the dark mode on Google Pay will also be functional, which is currently being tested. The specialty of the dark mode will be that Google Pay will automatically switch to the dark mode if the phone battery is low or the phone is on power saver.

Blog

What is Biometric Authentication?

Popular Methods of Biometric Authentication

Advantages of Biometric Authentication

Ease of Use and Accuracy

Safety and Privacy

Identity Management

Industry Use Cases

Travel

Government and Law Enforcement

What is BIometric Authentication?

How Biometric Authentication system works?

Biometric Sign In and New Accounts Fraud

Biometric Sign In and Chargeback Scams

Authorizing Merchants using Biometric Identification

Biometric Identification- A Growing Trend

What is AI Biometrics?

Types of Biometric ID Validation:

Fingertip recognition:

Iris recognition:

Face recognition:

Voice recognition:

Palm recognition:

DNA matching:

Ear acoustic authentication:

How Can AI Transform Biometric Authentication System?

AI-Powered Keystroke Dynamics

AI-Powered Facial Recognition

AI-Powered Voice Recognition:

AI-Powered Gait Detection:

How is AI Smarter?

Conclusion

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