BS ISO/IEC 19784-1:2006+A3:2010

This part of ISO/IEC 19784 defines the Application Programming Interface (API) and Service Provider Interface (SPI) for standard interfaces within a biometric system that support the provision of that biometric system using components from multiple vendors. It provides interworking between such components through adherence to this part of ISO/IEC 19784 and to other International Standards.

The BioAPI specification is applicable to a broad range of biometric technology types. It is also applicable to a wide variety of biometrically enabled applications, from personal devices, through network security applications, to large complex identification systems.

This part of ISO/IEC 19784 supports an architecture in which a BioAPI Framework supports multiple simultaneous biometric applications (provided by different vendors), using multiple dynamically installed and loaded (or unloaded) biometric service provider (BSP) components and BioAPI Units (provided by other different vendors), possibly using one of an alternative set of BioAPI Function Provider (BFP) components (provided by other vendors) or by direct management of BioAPI Units.

NOTE: Where BioAPI Units are provided by a different vendor fom a BSP, a standardised BioAPI Function Provider Interface (FPI) may be needed. This is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19784, but is specified by later parts for the different categories of FPI.

This part of ISO/IEC 19784 is not required (and should normally not be referenced) when a complete biometric system is being procured from a single vendor, particularly if the addition or interchange of biometric hardware, services, or applications is not a feature of that biometric system. (Such systems are sometimes referred to as \'embedded systems\'.) Standardisation of such systems is not in the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19784.

It is not in the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19784 to define security requirements for biometric applications and biometric service providers.

NOTE: ISO 19092 provides guidelines on security aspects of biometric systems. [3]

The performance of biometric systems (particularly in relation to searches of a large population to provide the biometric identification capability) is not in the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19784. Trade-offs between interoperability and performance are not in the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19784.

This part of ISO/IEC 19784 specifies a version of the BioAPI specification that is defined to have a version number described as Major 2, Minor 0, or version 2.0.

NOTE: Earlier versions of the BioAPI specification were not International Standards.