The BS ISO/IEC 19794 standards are applicable to all identity management systems including:
- identity document delivery and access management systems – such as border controls, corporate identity and access cards
- prison access/egress
- forensic identification - to identify casualties or suspects at the scene of a crime
- citizens' rights - including voting, national health, unemployment benefits, driving licences
- privileges associated with a particular employment category - including access to highly secure areas such as ports, airports, military establishments, company buildings, information systems
- access to services - including banking services, financial services, and online purchases.
BS ISO/IEC 19794 will be used in access control and identification systems such as those based on smart cards or other recognition tools, and also applies to the storage of biometric identification data in corporate databases.
Some of these standards will be used for/by:
- UK passports and UK ID cards*
- access management systems
- forensic identification
- identity product/service vendors
- identity document issuing authorities
- systems integrators
- producers of biometric devices and associated software.
*If the Government's proposal is passed into law.
BS ISO/IEC 19794-1:2006 provides an introduction to the concept of BDB formats, and the way they are to be used in conjunction with meta-data.
It is important to all those involved in biometrics procurement, system integrators, and those with devices producing vendor-specific or standardized BDB formats.
This part of ISO/IEC 19794 specifies
- general aspects for the usage of biometric data structures
- the types of biometric data structure
- a naming concept for biometric data structures
- a coding scheme for format types.
Biometric data include but are not limited to finger minutiae, finger pattern, finger image, face image, iris image and signature/sign behavioural data.
See the full range of biometrics standards in the BS ISO/IEC 19794 series