Until the late 19th century, Biometrics didn’t appear in Western culture. But the advent of biometrics to identify an individual was established long before Western Cultures had any ideas about biometrics. The earliest recorded use of biometrics for identification occurred during the fourteenth century.
Joao de Barros, and explorer and writer, wrote that Chinese merchants stamped children’s palm prints and footprints on paper with ink. He writes that they did this as a way of identifying one child from another.
Identification of a person using their physical traits has been around for centuries. Even before the advent of photography, a good sketch artist could make a likeness of one’s features, usually if they were a criminal, and send it to others who could then use it to identify the criminal who had migrated to a different town.
Identification in the West relied heavily on “photographic memory” for many years before Alphonse Bertillon, a French police desk clerk and anthropologist, developed an anthropometric system (system of measuring human physical traits such as strength, size, reach, and mobility) of identification in 1881. The first precise scientific system widely used to identify criminals, the anthropometric system turned biometrics into a field of study.
Through accurately recording individual markings such as tattoos, scars, and birthmark, and by measuring certain lengths and widths of the head and body, this anthropometric system was widely adopted in the West for many years. It began to lose momentum as a science when the flaws in Bertillon’s system became apparent. These problems stemmed from differing methods of measurement and the fact that individuals change and thus their measurements and identifying marks may disappear or change as well.
Throughout the twentieth century, Western police forces used fingerprinting, photos, and sketches to identify individuals. Biometrics as we know it today, with retinal scans, voice recognition, hand geometry, movement and signature recognition, has far surpassed anything our ancestors would have predicted.
In recent years, biometrics has become popularized by movies and mainstream media, and has moved from relative obscurity to the public consciousness. And with the events of September 11th, security became a national and worldwide issue, inspiring serious investigation of advanced biometrics for identifying individuals.
We can see the beginnings of widespread use of advanced biometric technology with the advent of the National ID Card System in the UK and several other countries, including Malaysia, Spain, possibly France, and others. In the US, North American governments (US and Canada) are talking about instituting a North American National License. Like the UK, the US is considering biometric passports that rely solely on biometric information. Foreign visitors may be issued biometric passports when entering the country. The uses for biometrics are numerous, as are the advantages. Despite privacy issues, there is a growing trend of biometrics in future identification technology and we will continue to see huge growth in biometric as this century moves ahead.
Reference:
- AlphaCard Identity Card Systems & Information
