Guidelines for best practices in biometrics research

Abstract

Biometric recognition has undoubtedly made great strides over the past 50 years. To ensure that current academic research in biometrics has a positive impact on future technological developments, this paper documents some guidelines encouraging researchers to focus on high-impact problems, develop solutions that are practically viable, report results using sound experimental and evaluation protocols, and justify claims based on verifiable facts. The intent is to ensure that methods and results published in the literature have been properly evaluated and are practically feasible for automated or semi-automated human recognition. It is believed that following these guidelines will avoid inflated claims and support published research on a legitimate foundation that can be embraced by practitioners and peers in biometrics and related scientific disciplines (e.g, forensic science).