A (condensed)Modern 

History of Biometric Testing 

in the US 

Dr. James L. Wayman 

jlwayman@aol.com 

1 
Our Focus 

• History of third-party testing of automated human 

recognition technologies in the U.S. 

• An incomplete survey 

• Goal: Stimulate the study of our historical roots 

2 
Some Pre-History 

• J. Sherme and J. Holmes, “An experiment concerning the 

recognition of voices” , Language and Speech, (2), 1959 

• L. Kersta, “Voiceprint Identification”, Nature (196), 1962 

– 8 high school girls with one week training 

– 2000 identification attempts on one or more words 

– Performance varied by word 

• A.J. Mauceri, “Feasibility Study of Personal Identification by 

Signature Verification”, North American Aviation, SID65-24, 

19 January 1965 

– 226 of 250 signatures correctly verified 

• W.W. Bledsoe, “Man Machine Facial Recognition: Report on 

a Large-scale Experiment”, Panoramic Research, Inc. (1966) 

– 2,000 photos, 40k comparisons 3 
Michigan State University 

• O. Tosi, et al, “Experiment on Voice Identification”, JASA 

(51)6, 1972, pp 2030-2043 

– A test of voiceprint approach of L. Kersta, “Voiceprint 

Identification”, Nature (196), pp 1253-1257, 1962 

– Semi-automated: speech spectograms shown to trained 

examiners 

– “Intraspeaker variability” 

– “Interspeaker variability” .. stems mainly from anatomical 

differences in vocal tracts and learned differences 

– “Closed/Open” tests 

– “Contemporary/Non-contemporary” 

4 
5 

NIST 

• J. Wegstein, 

“Automated Fingerprint 

Identification”, NBS 

Tech. Note 538, Aug. 

1970 

• Open and closed set 

tests 
 

FIPS PUB 48 (1977) 

“Guidelines on Evaluation of Techniques for Automated 

Personal Identification” 

• Type I = false alarm rate (FAR) 

• Type II = impostor pass rate (IPR) 

• “Effects of allowing multiple attempts” 

• “Combining personal identification methods” using AND/

OR 

•Face Signature •Ear Features 

•Hand geometry •Dental characteristics 

•Fingerprint •Footprints 

•Voice print •Retina 

6 
SRI (Lost Documentation) 

• D.E. Raphael and J.R. 

Young, “Automated 

Personal Identification”, 

1974 

• False alarm rate 

• Impostor pass rate 

• “Resistance to deceit” 

• “Combining of personal 

identification methods” 

7 
8 

Mitre 

Kibbler, G.O.T.H, “Evaluation of the Identimat 2000 Hand 

Geometry Identifier”, Mitre Corp., Oct., 1972 
Haberman and 

Fejfar(1976) 

• Handwriting and speech 

• 209 volunteers 

• 2600 trials for each technology 

• 100,000 cross comparisons segregated

by gender 

• Variation of Type I errors by person 

• Male error rates lower 

9 
Fejfar and Myers (1977) 

Speaker Handwriting Fingerprint 

FRR FAR FRR FAR FRR FAR 

Lab 0.2 4.4 3.2 1.7 4.6 2.2 

Field 1.1 3.3 1.9 5.6 6.5 2.3 

Time 6.2 sec 13.5 8.9 

10 
 

 

 

 

Fejfar (1978) 

S&H H&F F&S S&H&F 

FRR 3.0 8.4 7.6 9.5 

FAR 0.18 0.13 0.08 0.0043 

Ver Time 19.7 22.4 15.1 28.6 

Total Time 32.0 34.7 27.4 40.9 

11 
 

 

 

 

Fejfar (1978) 

S||H H||F F||S S||H||F 

FRR 0.02 0.12 0.07 0.0014 

FAR 8.9 7.9 5.6 11.2 

Ver Time 10.4 12.8 8.2 10.7 

Total Time 22.7 25.1 20.5 23.0 

12 
 13

1980s Pilot Projects 
Sandia Test Program 

(1983 – ~2000) 

“Tighter security requirements to combat the 

threat of terrorism, and today's capabilities of 

transferring large amounts of information and 

funds at electronic speeds further increases 

the need for personal identity verification.” 

-- Russell L Maxwell, “The Status Of 

Personnel Identity Verifiers”, 1985 

14 
SNL’84 SNL’87 SNL’91 NPL2000 

Fingerprint xx 9.8 6.6 8 

Hand xx 4.4 5 10 

Eye 7 7.5 7 12 

Voice 20 8.8 19.5 12 

Sandia Test Program 

Transaction time in seconds 

15 
The Cost of Biometrics 

(1984) 

• Voice: $7,000 

• Retina: $50,000 

• Fingerprint: $10,000 

• Finger Length: $7,000 

-- R.L. Maxwell, “General Comparison 

of Six Different Personnel Identity 

Verifiers”, Sandia National Laboratory, 

June 20, 1984 

16 
Sandia 1991 

Holmes, Wright, and Maxwell, “A Performance Evaluation of 

Biometric Identification Devices”, SAND91-0276 l UC–906 

• Signature 

• Retina 

• Hand 

• Voice (2) 

17 
Naval Postgraduate School 

(1984-1994) 

Prof. Gary Poock, Dept. of Operations Analysis 

Ph.D. in human factors 

• Access control laboratory 

• Retina 

– SCIF access control 

• Hand Geometry 

• Signature 

18 
Department of 

Transportation (1990) 

• Commercial Driver Licensing 

• CA-DMV/Orkand 

– Fingerprint 

– Retina Accuracy Rate 

19 
Retinal Scan 

20 
1990s 

• Sandia (1991, 1993, 1996) 

• NIST SRE (1996-present) 

• ARL FERET (1993 -1997) 

• Industry efforts 

– Commercial Biometric Developers Consortium

(1997) 

– John Seidlarz’s iris test for Defense Nuclear 

Agency (1996) 

– IBG 

21 
US National Biometric 

Test Center (1997-2000) 

www.engr.sjsu.edu/biometrics/nbtccw.pdf 

• AFIS 

– ROC analysis 

– Bin error v. penetration rates 

• Large-scale operational test 

– Hand geometry (INSPASS) 

22 
Army Biometric Fusion 

Center (2000 – 2005) 

• Biometrics on weapon systems 

• “Enterprise” access control 

• “Quick looks” 

– Completed 12 biometric device field quick looks - 9 

fingerprint, 2 iris, 1 hand geometry (7 Army, 2 Air 

Force, 1 Navy, 1 Marine Corps, and 1 DoD Agency) 

– Completed 56 assessments of commercial biometric 

products - 25 fingerprint, 2 iris, 2 hand geometry, 1 

signature verification, 2 speaker recognition, 8 facial 

recognition, 14 middleware products, 1 retina, 1 web 

portal 23 
NIST IAD (2003 – present) 

You are here •

http://biometrics.nist.gov/ 

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