Biometric privacy protection : guidelines and technologies

Compared with traditional techniques used to establish the identity of a person, biometric systems offer a greater confidence level that the authenticated individual is not impersonated by someone else. However, it is necessary to consider different privacy and security aspects in order to prevent possible thefts and misuses of biometric data. The effective protection of the privacy must encompass different aspects, such as the perceived and real risks pertaining to the users, the specificity of the application, the adoption of correct policies, and data protection methods as well. This chapter focuses on the most important privacy issues related to the use of biometrics, it presents actual guidelines for the implementation of privacy-protective biometric systems, and proposes a discussion of the methods for the protection of biometric data.