A technology for recognizing an individual based on physiological or behavioral characteristic to confirm that person's identity.

A form of user authentication based on a physical (e.g., fingerprint, iris, face or hand) or behavioral (e.g., signature or voice) characteristic. Because it is based on something the person "is," biometric authentication can provide a higher level of security than authentication based on something a person "knows" (e.g., a password) or something a person "has" (e.g., a magnetic card or hardware token). Biometric authentication systems require users to enroll to generate a template for later comparison and matching.

the automatic identification of living individuals by using their physiological and behavioral characteristics; "negative identification can only be accomplished through biometric identification"; "if a pin or password is lost or forgotten it can be changed and reissued but a biometric identification cannot"