Common Biometric Authentication Techniques: Comparative Analysis, Usability and Possible Issues Evaluation

Abstract

Although the usage of biometric devices has tremendously increased but still the traditional authentication techniques are still used by majority of average users. The concept behind biometric authentication technique is that users will not have to remember intricate passwords. Even if the people use biometric authentication mechanisms in their personal devices, they are still expected to remember the passwords and they are asked to input their passwords every now and then. This paper presents different biometric authentication techniques with reference to the past research work and focuses on common authentication techniques (fingerprint recognition, face recognition, pattern recognition, hand pointing device gesture recognition and passwords and personal identification numbers) that people use in their everyday life especially in their personal devices for instance laptops and cell phones. Furthermore, it presents the issues face by the users and what can be done to minimize the issues and increase the usability of biometric authentication techniques. The methods used to determine usability and security issues include experiments, questionnaires and interviews. Experiment session presents comparative analysis on how much time users from different age groups spend on enrolling biometrics and then authenticating with the provided sample. Body language of users and common errors are discussed. Survey session determines users’ perceptions, preferences and evaluates authentication mechanisms using usability heuristics. The most important interview session with users determines users’ expectations and needs as well as problems that they have faced using different authentication techniques under evaluation. In the end, authors conclude with feasible solutions of the problems discussed.