It is believed that over 2,000 years ago, the then leader of the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar, used an encryption method to ensure the privacy of his military messages, just like we use biometrics to ensure the security of our data.
Julius Caesar's method consisted of replacing each letter of a message with the next letter of the alphabet a fixed number of times, for example:
If the number was three, the letter A would become D, that is, the third letter after, just as B would become E, C would become F, and so on. This method of cryptography, in his honor, is called Caesar's Cipher.
If 2,000 years ago the security and privacy of information were already important points, nowadays, with the popularization of the Internet, where our data is in constant flow, this concern becomes even greater.
Luckily, unlike Julius Caesar, we can rely on modern technology to protect our data and information. One of these technologies, which has been emerging strongly in recent years, is the use of biometrics as a protection tool.
With it, we can choose who can access certain content or even a physical environment, such as a room or a building.
What is biometrics and how can it be used to protect us?
Biometrics is our physical characteristics, unique among each of us, which means it can be used to identify ourselves. Some examples of biometric characteristics that can be used in this identification since they have unique patterns are:
- Face.
- Fingerprint.
- Iris.
- Voice.
As you can see, there are several features that can be used to identify us, even the ears of newborns.
As such, by recording the information of people with permission to access certain content or location, we can improve the security of sensitive information and people who partake the same environment by barring malicious agents who will not have the required permission.
Where is biometrics used to protect us?
Just as Julius Caesar was able to control who accessed his secret messages, sharing only to trusted people how his encryption method worked, we can also control access to our personal information.
For example, there is the bank account, with a protection barrier in which only you, the bearer of your biometric characteristics, can access.
In addition, other applications for biometrics as a method of identification and protection are:
- Control of when employees punch the clock in a company;
- Access control of customers in a gym;
- Access of residents in a condo;
- Identification for purchases in shops and supermarkets with self-service.
Thus, one can see that it is possible to use biometrics, both in the physical and digital worlds, as our ally when ensuring security.
How can I use biometrics in my business?
Although it may seem like a technology far from our reality, it is actually possible to integrate biometrics into your solution quickly and easily, without having to invest a fortune.
BioPass ID APIs offer a face and fingerprint multibiometrics service, with its Multibiometrics API that performs all the work of biometric operations and charges only a few cents per operation.
It brings together the most common features for building applications that use biometric authentication, such as those described earlier.
Some of the most popular operations in this package include:
- Face detection: Automatically detects each face present in a photo.
- Face and fingerprint matching: compares two biometric captures for face and fingerprint, along or separately, and indicates whether these biometrics belong to the same person or not.
- Anonymization of the face: performs the anonymization of each face present in a photo.
- Liveliness test: catches an identity spoofing attempt in a biometric capture, further enhancing the security of your application.
- Compression for fingerprints: Uses the FBI-certified algorithm to perform compression and decompression of fingerprint biometric images to increase the efficiency of your operations.
Compression represents a pattern that securely compacts the fingerprint.
Want to know more about multibiometrics? Learn about multi-factor authentication
Despite Julius Caesar's creativity, by creating a method that protects his sensitive information, we can use simpler and automatic methods, with guaranteed effectiveness, to protect the data that travels through the cybernetic world.
With an efficient and easy to use and integrate API like Multibiometrics, it is possible to achieve this security using the latest technology without the need to invest in labor and research.
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