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By Pia Heikkila, 24 October 2001 15:05

NEWS Biometrics has traditionally focussed on identifying individuals through iris or fingerprint identification, but this technique could be fundamentally flawed. Instead, the solution to securing financial transactions, according to security gurus is through behavioural biometrics - a technology that analyses and learns an individual's spending patterns and reports any discrepancies to the account holder's bank. Martin Hewgill, fraud and risk specialist at card payment technology company ACI, said: "Body biometrics such as fingerprint and iris scans have too great false rejection rate to be successfully deployed as a reliable form of identification. "However, behavioural biometrics lets banks and credit card companies to alert the end user when the card is being compromised rather than user having to track down statements from months back." Some banks are already using basic types of risk analysis behind the scenes and Hewgill predicted this type of technology will become more widespread. "Banks can build a profile of users the minute they sign up for an account. They can calculate the possibilities of a risk behaviour of each customer." he added. Behavioural biometrics technology uses risk analysis software, which tracks down any unusual patterns in the user's bank account. Events that can trigger a warning include the transfer of large sums of money between accounts or the purchase of expensive goods through retail outlets.