Submit Manuscript | http://medcraveonline.com Abbreviations: FAR, false accept rate; FRR, false reject rate; EER, equal error rate; ROC, receiver operating characteristic Introduction Today, the actual technological scenario provides advanced services to the user, neglecting a very important factor: the security. For example, it is necessary to remember a lot of passwords to access into our online banking account, or into our email box, ecc. 1 The standard authentication systems, based on username and password, are not able to assure a suitable protection level for the transmitted information. This authentication mechanism unfortunately is not sure: whoever can illegitimately know and reproduce the secret information that should guarantee only our access. The security user should be the main point of any software application dealing with personal information. The biometric science provides an alternative paradigm for the personal authentication: our biological characteristics are unique and can be used to distinguish us from the others person. 2 In this paper a general overview of biometric systems and of the principal biometric technologies available is proposed and two indexes, FAR (false accept rate) and FRR (false reject rate), have been used to test the described fngerprint recognition sensor performances. The paper is organized as follow: in the section 2 are illustrated the possible modalities to user authenticate, considering the security issues related the biometric identity management; in the section 3 the principal functionalities and characteristics of a biometric system are analyzed, considering usability and problems; the section 4 introduces a set of existent available biometric technologies; in the section 5 the performance achievable from various biometric technologies are reported and fnally some conclusions are reported. Why biometrics? In every authentication system, each user can use a service only if the following two security phases are performed I. Authentication of the user digital identity. II. Granting of rights to perform the desired action. The authentication of the user digital identity is classifed in the three following approach [3] i. Something that one knows: if the user knows a pre-determined secret (generally represented by a password) then he is the correct person. In this system, the access is strongly conditioned by the password location: the probability that an impostor knows the password is high. This approach is called knowledge-based, because it uses information that only the user know. ii. Something that one has: if a user possesses a pre-arranged token (magnetic badge or smartcard) then he is the correct person. The token proprietary should have full access, without asking other additional information. Also here, the access to the system, and therefore its safety state, is strongly conditioned by the token location. This approach is called token-based, because it uses information that the user possesses. iii. Something that one is: in this approach, the concept is that the system compares user biometric characteristics with pre- registered values, known as template, allowing the access only if the measured characteristic corresponds to template stored in the system. The more common authentication systems use the frst and the second approach (or a their combination) to realize the user recognition. These kind of systems can be easily violated, simply stealing the token or knowing the password. These two approaches require that the user remember or carries with him “something” containing the necessary information for the authentication. With the third approach instead, the user haven’t the necessity to remember or to carry with him nothing: all information necessary for authentication belong to the user. User physical and behavioral characteristics (as the face geometry, the iris and retina scansion, the fngerprints, the voice, the calligraphy and so on) constitute the core of biometric systems. The biometric identity has the advantage to assure that only the correct user can have access to determined services: only who Int J Biosen Bioelectron. 2017;2(1):26‒31 26 © 2017 Conti et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially. Biometric authentication overview: a fngerprint recognition sensor description Volume 2 Issue 1 - 2017 Vincenzo Conti, 1 C Militello, 2 S Vitabile 3 1 University of Enna Kore, Italy 2 Institute of Molecular Bioimaging and Physiology, Italy 3 Department of Biopathology and Medical Biotechnologies, University of Palermo, Italy Correspondence: Vincenzo Conti, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Enna Kore,Viale delle Olimpiadi, 94100 Enna, Italy, Email vincenzo.conti@unikore.it Received: December 27, 2016 | Published: January 26, 2017 Abstract Biometrics provides an alternative paradigm for the personal authentication: our biological characteristics are unique and can be used to distinguish us from the other persons. Biometrics are automated methods of identifying a person or verifying the identity of a person based on a physiological or behavioral characteristic. Examples of physiological characteristics include hand or finger images, facial characteristics, and iris recognition. Behavioral characteristics are traits that are learned or acquired. Dynamic signature verification, speaker verification, and keystroke dynamics are examples of behavioral characteristics. In this paper a general overview of biometric systems based on the principal biometric technologies available and a description of a fingerprint recognition sensor performances are proposed. To test the biometric sensor performances two indexes are used, FAR (false accept rate) and FRR (false reject rate). Keywords: sensor, biometric technologies, user security, recognition systems International Journal of Biosensors & Bioelectronics Research Article Open Access