iTECH: Unique Identifier — Is Your CDL ‘Biometric’ Yet?
Personal Body Measurments Can be Encoded on CDLs, but Standards Are Lacking
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This article appeared in the December 2006/January 2007 edition of TT's iTECH supplement, published in the Dec. 11 issue of Transport Topics. For the full story, see the Dec. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
early 20 years ago, biometric identification was touted as a high-tech way of ensuring the validity of commercial driver licenses. What has happened to biometric IDs since then is a story of failed initiatives, some success and 9/11’s intrusion on the still-unresolved debate over standards.
Biometrics involves measuring and analyzing a body part of an individual and encoding the data as his or her “unique identifier.”
Potential characteristics include fingerprints; the patterns of voice, face and the retina or iris of the eye; and hand “geometry” — shape and size of the palm, and lengths and widths of the fingers.
