Behavioral Biometrics

What Is Behavioral Biometrics Data?

Behavioral biometrics is the field of study related to the collection and simultaneous analysis of unconscious behavior to accurately identify individuals. This includes simple gestures like how people walk, talk, hold mobile phones, look at things, gesture, and stand.

Most of the time, this data analyzes human behavior, but some scientists analyze animal behavior such as the wingbeats of a bird. They use the data to analyze a specific species and even individual creatures.

Where Does Behavioral Biometrics Data Come From?

The development of behavioral biometrics can be traced back to military defense programs like DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). However, most behavioral data comes from private security companies that are working with banking or financial institutions. These companies track this biometrical data through sensors, cameras, and technological devices based within the institution.

Not surprisingly, there are not many public databases for behavioral biometrics, due to the obvious security issues that would arise. Those that are available to the public tend to provide data on animals or insects.

What Types of Columns/Attributes Should I Expect When Working with This Data?

As noted above, behavioral biometrics can measure how a person types, holds a phone, walks, speaks, and stands. It may even track their eye movement or the gestures they use.

However, the most important attribute of this data is the immediate, real-time collection and assessment of data. Naturally, to protect a client’s bank account, the biometrics security system must evaluate their typing and mobile phone holding behavior within the few minutes it may take for the intruder to log in to a client’s account and make a transaction.

What Are Behavioral Biometrics Use Cases Used For?

Every institution, whether commercial, public, private or something else, makes use of behavioral biometrics use cases to keep their data and assets secure. Other uses, such as insect species identification or animal behavioral study, remains secondary.

How Should I Test the Quality of This Data?

In addition to complete security of the data itself, a quality data set has a fair amount of accurate historical data on each individual it measures. Since some individuals infrequently visit the website or physical locations of whatever institution collects this data, there may not be enough information on them to ensure accuracy. Therefore, a good dataset should collect a representative sample of behavior on each client.

Interesting Case Studies and Blogs to Look Into

TypingDNA: U.K. DVSA brings their driving test into the future with Capgemini and TypingDNA
BioCatch: Top LATAM Bank Reduces Social Engineering Fraud Targeting Mobile Users by 67% With Behavioral Biometrics

Tangible Examples of Impact

Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm BioCatch announced on Wednesday that four major global banks – Barclays, Citi, HSBC and National Australia Bank (NAB) – are investing $20 million in the company, extending its recent Series C fundraising round to$168 million. Investors Industry Ventures and existing shareholders American Express Ventures, CreditEase, Maverick Ventures and OurCrowd participated in that round.

BioCatch was founded in 2011 by entrepreneurs Avi Turgeman and the late Benny Rosenbaum. With over 50 patents, the company delivers behavioral biometrics analyzing human-device interactions to protect users and data. Financial institutions and enterprise companies use BioCatch’s tech to reduce online fraud and protect against a variety of cyber threats.

NoCamels: Israeli Behavioral Biometrics Firm BioCatch Nabs $20M From 4 Major Banks