Chapter 2 The BioSecure Benchmarking Methodology for Biometric Performance Evaluation Dijana Petrovska-Delacr´ etaz, Aur´ elien Mayoue, Bernadette Dorizzi, and G´ erard Chollet Abstract Measuring real progress achieved with new research methods and pin- pointing the unsolved problems is only possible within a well defined evaluation methodology. This point is even more crucial in the field of biometrics, where devel- opment and evaluation of new biometric techniques are challenging research areas. Such an evaluation methodology is developed and put in practice in the European Network of Excellence (NoE) BioSecure. Its key elements are: open-source soft- ware, publicly available biometric databases, well defined evaluation protocols, and additional information (such as How-to documents) that allow the reproducibility of the proposed benchmarking experiments. As of this writing, such a framework is available for eight biometric modalities: iris, fingerprint, online handwritten signa- ture, hand geometry, speech, 2D and 3D face, and talking faces. In this chapter we first present the motivations that lead us to the proposed eval- uation methodology. A brief description of the proposed evaluation tools follows. The multiple possibilities of how this evaluation methodology can be used are also described, and introduce the other chapters of this book that illustrate how the pro- posed benchmarking methodology can be put into practice. 2.1 Introduction Researchers working in the field of biometrics are confronted with problems related to three key areas: sensors, algorithms and integration into fully operational sys- tems. All these issues are equally important and have to be addressed in a pertinent manner in order to have successful biometric applications. The issues related to bio- metric data acquisition and the multiple issues related to building fully operational systems are not in the scope of this book, but can be found in numerous articles and books. This book is focused on the area of algorithmic developments and their evaluation. The unique feature of this book is to present and compare in one place recent algorithmic developments for main biometric modalities with the proposed evaluation methodology. D. Petrovska-Delacr´ etaz et al. (eds.), Guide to Biometric Reference Systems 11 and Performance Evaluation, DOI 10.1007/978-1-84800-292-0 2, c  Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009