A study on the available biometric technologies used in order to control security in physical access

The control of the physical access in automated security systems, like banks, ports, airports and military areas, is essential to guarantee the financial security of the institutions and to prevent to the possibility of accomplishment of terrorist acts. To this, a lot of technologies used in security systems can be used, but the choice of a technology depends on some factors, as the level of security related with the financial value to be protected, the entailed cost to the technology implementation related to the level of offered security, and the physical characteristics to the proper installation. This work aims to present the main characteristics of the biometric technologies used currently in the control of physical access, therefore the biometry is known as the measurement technique more insurance currently in the identification of a person. The susceptibility to fraud, involved costs to implementation and installation of the biometric devices, advantages and disadvantages of each technology will be presented in this work. Some technologies have low costs for the implantation, but its use has low acceptance in some countries. Others have high trustworthiness but the cost becomes the prohibitive equipment. This work presents a relation cost-benefit, so that the choice of the technology can be made taking in account the involved cost and the degree of security of the technology to be used.