How many times have we been confronted with scenes from movies and TV shows where sophisticated and advanced technologies were used to protect something!? And how many times in front of such scenes have we smiled ironically thinking about how “inflated” and artificial the reality that was intended to be represented had been? The fantasy of man has found free rein in these representations thanks to special effects, but slowly, with years – even decades – of research it begins to become more concrete. We refer to terms such as biometrics applied to computer security and we see the scenes of the movies become reality: on recent smartphones we find in fact fingerprint readers useful to keep safe all the information on the network. The “old” protection tools such as passwords, access codes, and two-step verification, are being joined by so-called biometric sensors.
Specifically, the term biometrics in computer science refers to a system that can recognize and identify an individual based on certain physiological characteristics. Personal aspects, unique to the individual themselves such as iris, fingerprints, retina, etc. Biometric data is therefore highly confidential information that a machine identifies to allow access or not to an account or a device by one and only one user (unless Mystica is hiding among us…). When it comes to fingerprints, in the latest generation of smartphones, you can find biometric sensors such as a fingerprint scanner that makes accessing the screen and apps, much more secure than using PINs or other unlocking methods. Being perfected are scanners that can recognize us by voice, signature or handwriting.
Sara Avanzi