BIOMETRIC TERMS O

One-to-many
A phrase used in the biometrics community to describe a system that compares one reference to many enrolled references to make a decision. The phrase typically refers to the identification or watchlist tasks.

One-to-one
A phrase used in the biometrics community to describe a system that compares one reference to one enrolled reference to make a decision. The phrase typically refers to the verification task (though not all verification tasks are truly one-to-one) and the identification task can be accomplished by a series of one-to-one comparisons.

Open-set Identification
Biometric task that more closely follows operational biometric system conditions to 1) determine if someone is in a database and 2) find the record of the individual in the database. This is sometimes referred to as the “watchlist” task to differentiate it from the more commonly referenced closed-set identification.

Operational Evaluation
One of the three types of performance evaluations. The primary goal of an operational evaluation is to determine the workflow impact seen by the addition of a biometric system.

Overt
Biometric sample collection where end users know they are being collected and at what location. An example of an overt environment is the US-VISIT program where non-U.S. citizens entering the United States submit their fingerprint data.