As the number and scale of deployments of biometric recognition systems increase, biometrics is moving from an era where vendor-specific products, techniques and solutions were acceptable, into an era where interoperability is important and conformance to standards is required by most procurers of biometric products.
Recently published BS ISO/IEC 19794 standards cover data structures to digitally record finger, face and iris images and fingerprint features, for use in identity management systems. Some of the standards are already used for the recording of biometric data on UK ePassports and they will find further application once UK ID cards are deployed.
BSI’s publications and International standards are essential for those concerned with government contracts and procurement or with the enhancement of IT security through the identification of personnel and/or physical access control.
BS ISO/IEC 19794-5:2005+A1:2007 defines a biometric data block format that contains a digital record of the image of a face. It specifies how the image is to be acquired (including lighting, pose of the subject - expression, head-dress, etc), and how it is to be converted to a digital representation, with a full specification of the digital format.
