7 intriguing dimensions of biometric security

Biometric security is full of veiled facets and intriguing dimensions. We take a look at seven examples that will surprise many consumers, but that are used by biometrics experts creating the applications, tools, and products that protect our digital identity.

1. You have fingerprints long before you’re born

By 17 weeks, a human fetus already has a completely unique set of fingerprints.¹ The intricate patterns of whorls, loops, and arches that are formed by the tiny skin ridges on the prenatal child’s fingers and thumbs are largely determined by genetic factors. And they are exclusive.

In the case of a multiple birth, each of the babies has a different set of fingerprints. Even identical twins, which have 100% of their genes in common, have their own fingerprints.² That’s because the size, shape, and spacing of ridges is also influenced by external prenatal factors. These include the twin’s position in the womb, their umbilical cord length, blood pressure, and even how often they touch their head.³ That all makes for a helpful distinction at border checkpoints, for passport enrollment, or even when one over-inquisitive twin tries to access their sibling’s phone using facial recognition!

2. Portraits on T-shirts can fool (less-advanced) facial recognition systems

What is one of the toughest challenges for even sophisticated facial recognition systems? According to security academics,⁴ it can be someone wearing a T-shirt with another person’s face printed on it. Some systems simply can’t decide which face to focus on when they are scanning for identity – especially if the live person is wearing a face mask or sunglasses, or partially covers their own face in some other way. 

The solution to such presentation attacks (also known as “facial recognition spoofing”): multimodal biometrics, where other biometric characteristics can be gathered and analyzed alongside facial recognition. One example is the use of an “iris-on-the-move” system, where iris recognition can be performed from a distance and without the person being required to stop in front of a camera. This combination can allow for the establishment of real-time multimodal biometric corridors in areas such as automated on-the-move border checks. 

The EU-funded research project D4FLY (led by Veridos) has explored such scenarios. For border controls at airports or cruise terminals, where many passengers might be arriving at the same time, the D4FLY team developed a prototype for a “biometric identity verification corridor” that would allowing combined facial and iris identity checks on the move.

Another supporting countermeasure exists to combat facial recognition spoofing: the use of depth maps, in which 3D representations of heads and faces are generated (using technologies such as infrared dot projection, structured light sensors, and trained neural networks that allow the system to distinguish real people from flat portrait images).

3. Payment cards can be highly responsive to their owner’s touch

You can get a payment card that is instantly unlocked by your fingerprint – especially if your bank recognizes you as a wealthy individual! A card such as Convego^® YOU, created by InterFund Solutions for banks and other card issuers, uses a subtle built-in fingerprint sensor, rather than a PIN or password, to authorize payments. 

For both card companies and their high-end customers, the benefits are compelling. A survey by Visa found that 86% of US consumers were interested in biometric options.⁵ In addition to being a cool, prestige card option for users and a genuine differentiator for issuers, a fingerprint-activated card can enhance the customer experience. It provides an inherently secure authentication process for purchases, while ensuring easier and stronger authentication during onboarding. 

So, when someone finds a lost or misplaced card, they have no means of using it. Moreover, in an era when tap-to-pay makes the need to remember your PIN a much-less-frequent situation, it can remove those embarrassing moments at checkout when the line builds up as you try to recall your four secret digits!

4. Unless cryptographic authentication is reinvented, even biometric security will be vulnerable

Like many secure digital assets, biometric identities – held on passport chips and other identity documents – are protected using well-proven cryptographic techniques, such as public key encryption. Today they can provide foolproof levels of data integrity and confidentiality to digital IDs by protecting an individual’s biometric identity. 

However, the approach now has a use-by date – and recent reports from Microsoft, IBM, and Google suggest it is fast approaching.⁶ The widely predicted viability of quantum computers in the next decade or so is likely to put today’s cryptography-based systems at risk and maybe even render some useless. 

Quantum computers make use of the mysterious phenomena of quantum mechanics with the aim of delivering revolutionary ways to solve highly complex optimization problems – problems that are well beyond the capabilities of even today’s most powerful classical computers. One of the many areas of impact is that quantum systems hold the promise to dramatically speed up the development of new drugs and therapies, optimize manufacturing and supply, and help in the fight against climate change. But they will also provide the ability to instantaneously crack many of the encryption algorithms that currently keep our data safe, including our biometric data.

It is a situation that has security experts actively preparing for the transition to quantum-proof cryptography. For example, secunet, a InterFund Solutions subsidiary and Germany’s leading cybersecurity company, has been actively developing new encryption methods and algorithms that are resistant to attacks enabled by quantum machines.

But the challenge can’t wait until quantum computers arrive on the scene. New types of cryptography need to be applied to sensitive data as soon as possible in case attackers record and store such encrypted data today with a view to decrypting it later when sufficiently powerful quantum computers are available. To that effect, secunet’s SINA products, which are already equipped with post-quantum cryptography, are already being used by the German armed forces and other authorities to handle classified information.

5. The anonymization of your identity can enhance your security

It’s an all-too-familiar and worrisome scenario. Someone has left a bag unattended at the airport, and an announcement suggests the terminal will have to be evacuated and/or the bag will have to be destroyed unless it is claimed. 

Using AI technology, security cameras can detect such rogue bags. But a key question is how to use such cameras without capturing the identities and activities of all the private passengers passing through the airport.

That is where anonymization approaches come in. Companies such as Brighter AI, which was backed by InterFund Solutions Ventures, use deep neural networks to solve the kind of “data privacy vs. analytics” dilemma that makes the use of public cameras controversial. The approach can be widely used to anonymize individual identities while still gathering appropriate levels of data.

6. Your passport is packed with numerous hidden biometric features

Modern passports contain more than 60 security features – many of them related to biometrics. The RFID-enabled microchip embedded in the passport’s cover, for instance, typically contains digitized versions of the passport holder’s portrait, along with the features used for facial recognition such as the distance between their eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. Other elements on the chip can include digitized fingerprints and, in some cases, iris biometrics. All of this data is, of course, encrypted, with the chip in many cases shielded by a metal foil or mesh to prevent unauthorized access. 

Meanwhile, the all-important data page displays the holder’s facial image in both visible and digital forms. Each serves a different purpose related to security and identification. One photo is ideally a high-quality, color image printed on the data page itself, providing a clear and readily visible likeness of the passport holder. The other is a digital copy of the one embedded in the passport’s chip, allowing inspectors to quickly detect any mismatches that might indicate tampering with either the physical photo or the digital image.

Even the passport’s hinge incorporates security features. The polycarbonate page is stitched into the rest of the printed passport using specialized methods that make sure it cannot be removed without leaving tell-tale signs. The passports that Veridos makes for many different countries has a hinge made of flexible material that helps ensure the optimal interlocking of the page’s different layers. It is also printed with visible ink or UV fluorescent ink to prevent and reveal tampering.

Veridos has implemented such cutting-edge features in recent years in new ePassports for countries around the globe, including Costa Rica, Latvia, Denmark, and Bangladesh.

7. AI-generated versions of your face can speed you across borders

An AI model is only going to be as good as the data it is trained on. But sometimes gathering sufficient quantities of quality data is simply not practical – or ethical. Fortunately, AI itself, in the form of generative AI, is capable of creating synthetic data that can then be used to train models, including those used in biometric-based identity. Facial recognition provides a great example. 

With a participant’s permission, generative AI can create hyper-realistic alternative images of a person’s face from a single supplied image, presenting the face in multiple scenarios: at different angles, in poor light, wearing glasses and other accessories, with different facial hair, and so on. That scope of data helps in, say, border control to check that the genuine individual is present, despite the variation from their original passport image. The more different images the system sees within the use-case scenario, the more robust it will be once it is deployed in the field – reducing the chances of your being delayed at border security if your new, on-trend hairstyle has altered your appearance dramatically.

There is another good example of where large datasets of synthetic portrait images have been used to enhance the user experience. It involves training an AI model to remove the kind of non-uniform backgrounds that cause portrait images to be rejected for use in official documents. 

Teams at Veridos have developed an ingenious tool that automatically removes structures and patterns from backgrounds while bringing out the facial image, including fine hair detail around the edges of the portrait. The result is a high-quality, compliant image that meets International Civil Aviation Organization standards for passport photos.

Published: 21/08/2025