Fingerprint recognition techniques and its applications

Fingerprints are the most widely used biometric identifier because of their ease of acquisition, storage and further processing for identification/ verification. Fingerprint recognition (FPR) has been used for security purposes and criminal identifications since a long time. This paper presents overview of a basic FPR system, various FPR techniques and challenges. After that a brief discussion on how to compare/verify FPR systems is presented. FPR applications in different areas are listed with some industries and government sectors using this technology. Finally, use of advanced image processing techniques for better results of FPR is discussed, which actually provides a platform for research and development in this area for researchers.