the database
biometry | motivations | sponsors
What is biometry ?
Automatic identity verification by computers traditionnaly use what a person has – a kea, a magnetic card – or what a person knows – a password, a PIN code –. The drawbacks of these technologies are well known : keys or magnetic cards get lost and passwords or codes are often forgotten or disclosed. On the other hand, humans can naturally recognize each others. This can be done for example looking at the face when we meet or listening to the voice when we talk. Following the example of human capacities, biometrics technologies are targetting a more robust way for identity verification by analysing physiological or behavioral characteristics of individuals. Some biometrics use for example fingerprints, the shape of the face or even signature and handwriting dynamics. The advantages of biometrics are obvious. On the one hand, biometrics characteristics of a person can't easily be transferred or copied. On the other hand, biometrics systems are simple to use since no keys or cards need to be carried along and no passwords need to be remembered. In short, the system verify who you are and not anymore what you have or what you know.
Motivations to record this database.
The main reason to record a multimodal biometrics database is simple. The scientific community does not have access, at the time being, to a sufficient quantity of multimodal data. Such a database is necessary to validate any new scientific progress and to objectively evaluate different approaches in multimodal (and mono-modal) biometrics.
Sponsors
The sponsors of MyIdea database are the swiss project IM2 and the european project BioSecure.