Satellite communications as a viable method for biometric record transfer in field biometric devices

The use of biometrics, and their associated handheld field devices, as an identification and verification technique is growing at a considerable rate. Governments and private organizations are making significant investments to identify and research new types of biometrics while pushing the industry to provide scanners capable of weathering field missions. In parallel, similar levels of investment are being made to build centralized databases that have the capability to query millions of records in a matter of seconds. While these investments push the biometric industry forward, lesser time has been invested into linking biometric scanners with a remote database. Commercially available scanners rely heavily on the evolution of the cellular industry or a satellite connected portable laptop to provide the necessary bandwidths required to transmit biometric records from the scanner to the remote database. This paper explores the use of satellite communications in handheld field sensors as a global communications link between biometric scanners and a remote database. The present work discusses and evaluates biometric type, file size, and satellite bandwidth for satellite communications on handheld field biometric devices. The paper concludes by identifying an emerging product, not yet commercially available, that integrates satellite technology into a product already capable of linking legacy wireless capable scanners with a remote database.