Standard biometrics vocabulary matters, ISO standard update coming

The constrained financial resources of organizations like UNHCR leave no room for misunderstanding during the procurement process for important but potentially expensive technologies like biometrics.

During a hybrid workshop hosted by the European Association for Biometrics (EAB) and the UNHCR, the latter’s organization’s Head of Biometrics and Interoperability Sam Jefferies emphasized the importance of standards “to make sure that the vendors and partners with which we work are all talking the same language.”

One of those standards, ISO/IEC 2382-37 “Information technology — Vocabulary: Biometrics,” is specifically about the language used. Jim Wayman presented the vocabulary and concept harmonization standard from Working Group 1 of ISO Standing Committee 37, for which he is the principal UK expert.

The terminology of biometrics required standardization, which originally appeared in ISO form in 2007, because the words used have so often led to confusion.

Good thing they didn’t go with API

Even the recognition of biometrics as a unified field comes after techniques and areas of study had been established in various modalities and applications. A paper on “automated personal identification” published in 1977 by NIST predecessor the National Bureau of Standards addresses performance evaluation for what today we would call biometric access control systems.

“Biometrics” became popularized as a term around 1980, Wayman says, but it was over a decade later that the technology’s practical value for deduplicating databases was recognized. The vocabulary for what that worked involved, however, was not yet established.

In the ‘90s, after “a failed tender” for a nationwide automated biometric identification system (ABIS), a “very large country” contacted Wayman. He described a failed tender as “when you put out a request for tender and all of the vendors write back ‘What is this?’”

Clashes in terminology between access control and the broader use of biometrics continue today, according to Wayman.

Specific but universal

The effectiveness of biometrics is often expressed in terms of “false acceptance” and “false rejection,” but what these terms mean depends on whether the claim made by the individual is that they match or do not match a given biometric sample.  If the person says they have not registered in a database, and is telling the truth, then a “false match” means the registration attempt will be rejected.

Further, a term like “match” (and “matched”) has also been used in the past to mean what ISO 2382 says should be “mated” and “comparison.”

ISO has standards for vocabulary development, though Wayman notes there are standards committees associated with the body that do not follow them. The biometrics-specific vocabulary was developed with a few other criteria in mind, such as not disrupting the industry unnecessarily, and consistency with dictionary definitions.

Major update coming

Until very recently, the working group has avoided modality-specific terms. Recent work on voice recognition, however, in response to a request from the U.S. government, will see some specific terminology placed in the forthcoming update to ISO 2382. Fingerprint-specific terms may follow.

The process starts with concepts and characteristics and proceeds to terminology. The committee is seeking more non-native English speakers to help make sure the Anglophones don’t get lost in language-specific weeds.

Wayman expects the fourth edition of ISO/IEC 2382 Part 37 to be published next year, the first update since 2022. It increases the number of terms defined from just over 200 by “30 or 40,” Wayman says.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  biometrics research  |  EAB  |  EAB 2026  |  ISO standards  |  ISO/IEC 2382-37  |  standards