Of all the biometric
techniques being used today, fingerprint-based identification is the oldest
method, which has been successfully used in numerous applications. Everyone
is known to have unique, immutable fingerprints. A fingerprint is made of a
series of ridges, splits, dots, valleys and furrows, as well as the minutiae
points. Minutiae points are local ridge characteristics that occur at either
a ridge bifurcation or a ridge ending. These characteristics are then
converted to a unique 'digital fingerprint' template that can be stored in a
smart card or central database for subsequent matching and authentication
processes.