soft biometrics

The beginnings of Soft Biometrics can be identified as laid by Alphonse Bertillon in the 19th century. He first proposed a personal identification system based on biometric, morphological and anthropometric determinations.{{Cite book | last1 = Rhodes | first1 = H.T.F. | title = Alphonse Bertillon: Father of Scientific Detection | year = 1956 | ol = 18720791M }}

The most common traits he introduced were colour of eye, hair, beard and skin; shape and size of the head; body characteristics like height or weight as well as indelible marks such as birth marks, scars or tattoos. A majority of these descriptors presently fall into the category of Soft Biometrics.

Jain lately redefined Soft Biometrics as a set of traits providing information about an individual, though these are not able to individually authenticate the subject because they lack distinctiveness and permanence.{{Cite conference |last1 = Jain | first1 = A.K. | last2 = Dass | first2 = S.C. | last3 = Nandakumar | first3 = K. | title = Soft biometric traits for personal recognition systems. | conference = International Conference on Biometric Authentication | year = 2004 | doi =10.1007/978-3-540-25948-0_99 }} Further research has shown that a larger set of soft biometric traits can be used to identify individuals. A redefinition of Soft Biometrics was proposed by Reid and Nixon as any characteristic which can be naturally described by humans.{{Cite conference | last1 = Reid | first1 = D.A. | last2 = Nixon | first2 = M.S. | title = Using Comparative Human Descriptions for Soft Biometrics. | conference = International Joint Conference on Biometrics | year = 2011 | url = http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/272922/1/IJCB%20%283%29.pdf | url-status = dead | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20130308190221/http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/272922/1/IJCB%20%283%29.pdf | archivedate = 2013-03-08 }} Such soft biometrics are well suited to deployment in surveillance applications {{Citation | last1 = Reid| first1 = D.A. | last2 = Samangooei | first2 = S. | last3 = Chen | first3= C. | last4 = Nixon| first4 = M.S. | last5= Ross | first5= A. | title = Soft Biometrics for Surveillance: An Overview. | series = Handbook of statistics, Vol. 31 | year = 2013 | url=http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/342219/10/Chapter%2013%20hb%20statistics.pdf}} and research is ongoing to capitalise on these developments.

Traits which accept the above definition include, but are not limited to:

• Physical: skin colour, eye colour, hair colour, presence of beard or moustache, height, weight, gender, race, ethnicity, wrinkles.
• Behavioural: gait, keystroke, signature.
• Adhered human characteristics: clothes colour, tattoos, accessories.

Soft Biometrics inherit a main part of the advantages of Biometrics and furthermore endorses by its own assets. Some of the advantages include non obtrusiveness, the computational, and time efficiency and human compliance. Furthermore, they do not require enrollment, nor the consent or the cooperation of the observed subject.

Soft biometrics are used to identify humans and can be combined with biometric authentication systems to increase the amount of accuracy of recognition.{{Citation|last=Kathrine|first=G. Jaspher Willsie|title=Biometrics-Based Authentication Scheme for Cloud Environment|date=2018-12-07|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1201/9780429435461-31|work=Cryptographic and Information Security|pages=917–944|location=Boca Raton, FL|publisher=CRC Press|doi=10.1201/9780429435461-31 |isbn=978-0-429-43546-1|s2cid=196187324 |access-date=2020-10-25|url-access=subscription}} An example is visual surveillance, and soft biometric information can help identify people during the inconsistencies when faces are captured poorly on camera.{{Cite book|last1=James|first1=Priyamol|last2=Thomas|first2=Jeena|last3=Alex|first3=Neena|title=2015 International Conference on Soft-Computing and Networks Security (ICSNS) |chapter=A survey on soft Biometrics and their application in person recognition at a distance |date=February 2015|pages=1–5 |chapter-url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/icsns.2015.7292416|publisher=IEEE|doi=10.1109/icsns.2015.7292416|isbn=978-1-4799-1752-5|s2cid=16114639 }}

• Biometrics
• Private biometrics
• Surveillance
• Anthropometry
• Biometric passport
• Biometrics in schools

• [http://www.cse.msu.edu/biometrics/Publications/SoftBiometrics/JainDassNandakumar_SoftBiometrics_SPIE04.pdf Can soft biometric traits assist user recognition?]. Published in SPIE 2004.
• "Ross et al.", Handbook of multibiometrics, International Series on Biometrics, Vol. 6, Springer 2006.
• [ftp://ftp.elet.polimi.it/users/Stefano.Tubaro/ICIP_USB_Proceedings_v2/pdfs/0000037.pdf Facial marks: Soft biometric for face recognition]{{dead link|date=May 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}. Published in ICIP 2009.
• [http://www.eurecom.fr/util/popuppubli.en.htm?page=copyright&id=3189 Weight estimation from visual body appearance] . Published in BTAS 2010.
• [http://www.eurecom.fr/util/popuppubli.en.htm?page=copyright&id=3232 Soft biometrics systems : Reliability and asymptotic bounds]. Published in BTAS 2010.
• [http://www.eurecom.fr/util/popuppubli.en.htm?page=copyright&id=3028 Color based soft biometry for hooligans detection]. Published in ISCAS 2010.
• [http://www.eurecom.fr/util/popuppubli.en.htm?page=copyright&id=3231 Person recognition using a bag of facial soft biometrics (BoFSB)]. Published in MMSP 2010.

{{Biometrics}}

Category:Biometrics

Category:Surveillance