Biometric characteristics

The various biometric procedures differ substantially in the error rate / recognition rate and thus in their reliability. According to a study by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), an error rate of two percent is expected even for the best fingerprint systems. With a biometric system, the dependence of the false acceptance rate (FAR) on the false rejection rate (FRR) must always be taken into account. Although a fingerprint recognition system can be set to a false acceptance rate of 1‰ and less (i.e. one person is falsely accepted per 1,000 persons), this increases the false rejection rate to 2% (i.e. one person is falsely rejected per 50 persons).

When setting up the system, it is therefore important to weigh up the security requirement against the acceptance (or comfort) of the users. In a high-security system, the false acceptance rate will be set as low as possible, whereas in a "normal" access system, care must be taken to ensure that your own employees are not wrongly rejected too often.

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