What is ISO/IEC 19795-1 about?
ISO/IEC 19795-1 establishes general principles for testing the performance of biometrics systems in terms of error rates and throughput rates for purposes including measurement of performance, prediction of performance, comparison of performance, and verifying conformance with specified performance requirements.
ISO/IEC 19795-1 specifies performance metrics for biometric systems and requirements on the recording of test data and reporting of test results.
ISO/IEC 19795-1 specifies requirements on test protocols to:
- Reduce bias due to inappropriate data collection or analytic procedures
- Help achieve the best estimate of field performance for the expended effort
- Improve understanding of the limits of applicability of the test results
ISO/IEC 19795-1 is applicable to empirical performance testing of biometric systems and algorithms through analysis of the comparison scores and decisions output by the system, without requiring detailed knowledge of the system’s algorithms or of the underlying distribution of biometric characteristics in the population of interest.
Who is ISO/IEC 19795-1 for?
ISO/IEC 19795-1 on biometric performance testing and reporting is useful for:
- Commercial application developers
- Biometric device manufacturer companies
- Civil identification agencies
- Healthcare department
- Government authorities
Why should you use ISO/IEC 19795-1?
ISO/IEC 19795-1 is concerned solely with the scientific-technical performance testing of biometric systems and devices. Technical performance testing seeks to determine error and throughput rates, with the goal of understanding and predicting the real-world error and throughput performance of biometric systems. The error rates include both false-positive and false-negative rates, as well as failure-to-enrol and failure-to-acquire rates across the test population. Throughput rates refer to the number of individuals processed per unit of time based both on computational speed and human-machine interaction.
The purpose of ISO/IEC 19795-1 is to present the requirements and best scientific practices for conducting and reporting technical performance testing. ISO/IEC 19795-1 acknowledges that technical performance testing is only one form of biometric testing. Biometric technical performance testing can be of three types: technology, scenario and operational evaluation. Each type of test requires a different protocol and produces different types of results. Other parts of the ISO/IEC 19795 series provide specific advice and requirements for the development and use of such different test protocols.
ISO/IEC 19795-1 addresses specific philosophies and principles that can be applied over a broad range of test conditions.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS ISO/IEC 19795-1:2021 supersedes BS ISO/IEC 197951:2006. BS ISO/IEC 19795-1:2021
includes some technical changes with respect to BS ISO/IEC 197951:2006. These include:
- Terminology is updated to follow the biometrics vocabulary of ISO/IEC 238237:2017
- Additional detail is provided on testing and reporting of transaction times and computational workload, and on the graphical representation of results
