Biometric Systems

Biometric systems are used to categorize an individual’s unique personal characteristics. There are two major characteristics of biometric systems, finger prints and retina scans. There are many more finger prints on file than retina scans and since September 11th, the process of analyzing finger prints has escalated drastically. Before the twin tower attacks, analyzing finger prints was a very expensive process that took quite a bit of time. Now, looking up a person’s finger print is fast and easy. Because no two people have the same finger prints, there’s no possibility of a mistake in the identification results. Generally government agencies are the only ones with access to finger print databases and regular citizens are unable to gain access to this information without the help of a government employee.

Demographic Information

Demographic identifiers are another way to access a person’s file and include information like a person’s name, social security number and address. The only aspect of the demographic information is the social security information, which alone cannot provide you with the identity of a person as they could give a law enforcement individual false information. A demographic identifier is used as a secondary source to a biometric system in order to prove that a person’s identity is correct.

Date of Birth

The date of birth is a very important identifier when looking up criminal records. This information, combined with biometric systems and demographic information, adds to the big picture. As some criminal records do not include a social security number, the birth date is incredibly important since it’s on all the records. In today’s workplace, it’s considered rude for employers to ask their employees how old they are, which makes the process a little difficult. Employers are allowed to ask their employees their age as long as they don’t discriminate them based on that age. In the past, people assumed that a full name combined with a date of bird was incredibly unique, but that is no longer the case. There are so many people in the United States that there are many people who have the exact same name and birthday.