The term "biometrics" is derived from the Greek words bio (life) and metrics (to measure).

Biometrics is becoming an interesting topic now in regards to computer and network security, however the ideas of biometrics have been around for many years. "Biometrics is the development of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences. Biometrics is a very broad and fast moving segment of the information technology (IT) industry. Different vendors and support personnel can use different terminology to describe similar biometric concepts. A Biometrics system is basically a pattern recognition system, including all the hardware and associated software and the interconnecting infrastructure, enabling identification by matching a live sample to a stored pattern in a database. With regard to technology Biometrics is the term given to the use of biological traits or behavioural characteristics to identify an individual. Their traits may be fingerprints hand geometry facial geometry retina patterns iris patterns voice recognition handwriting recognition The biggest issue in biometric implementation is user acceptance . If a user doesnt like a particular system it will not be used properly and will not be effective, no matter how efficiently the system is implemented. Biometrics is a rapidly evolving technology which is being widely used in forensics such as criminal identification and prison security, and has the potential to be used in a large range of civilian application areas.