Biometrics in the Era of COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities

TL;DR

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted biometric recognition systems, creating challenges for traditional methods and opening new research opportunities in non-contact and disease-related biometric applications.

Contribution

This paper provides an overview of the challenges faced by biometric systems during COVID-19 and explores emerging opportunities and research directions.

Findings

Facial and voice biometrics face challenges due to masks and social distancing.

Renewed interest in iris and periocular recognition for contactless identification.

Biometric characteristics are being explored for disease detection.

Abstract

Since early 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic has had a considerable impact on many aspects of daily life. A range of different measures have been implemented worldwide to reduce the rate of new infections and to manage the pressure on national health services. A primary strategy has been to reduce gatherings and the potential for transmission through the prioritisation of remote working and education. Enhanced hand hygiene and the use of facial masks have decreased the spread of pathogens when gatherings are unavoidable. These particular measures present challenges for reliable biometric recognition, e.g. for facial-, voice- and hand-based biometrics. At the same time, new challenges create new opportunities and research directions, e.g. renewed interest in non-constrained iris or periocular recognition, touch-less fingerprint- and vein-based authentication and the use of biometric characteristics for disease detection. This article presents an overview of the research carried out to address those challenges and emerging opportunities.