Biometrics in ambient intelligence

The security concerns due to the September 11 and later terroristic attacks, fostered the development of more advanced techniques for biometric identification. This had a positive impact to research and deployment of these technologies, founding a basis for security-related applications. At the same time, the privacy concerns for the misuse of personal information have hindered the application of the same technologies wherever their introduction could not be enforced. The risk is for the scientific development to be blocked by contradictory needs, which, in turn, often derive from misconceptions or misunderstanding of the real potential of biometric technologies. Within this context, ambient intelligence allows to consider the relation between biometrics and privacy under a different perspective. In fact, as most of times we are able to maintain social relations without the need to know each other’s identity (consider for example the case of a customer relating with an attendant at a department store), in the same way biometric technologies can facilitate the man–machine interaction (to better provide useful services) without the need to determine the user’s full identity. Also in the case of security applications, most often may be sufficient to retrieve ancillary information about a subject rather than determining his/her identity. This paper analyzes the potential of biometric technologies within the general scope of ambient intelligence, trying to identify some key technological issues which may respond to privacy concerns. Some example applications are considered where by exploiting the information contained in biometric data, such as the facial expression or other, non visual, measurements, it is possible to better relate the user with the environment and provide a substantial input to drive the services provided, without compromising his privacy.