What Is a Biometric Card?

A biometric card is a smart card that stores a wealth of biometric information specific to the cardholder. The card's chip acts as a digital computer that stores significantly more data than other common cards such as credit cards.

Features

• A biometric card can store over a gigabyte's worth of information. It holds the medical records and history of the cardholder, including past medical procedures, allergies and even images of CT or MRI scans. It can also include physical features of the cardholder, such as height, hair color, fingerprint and iris templates as well as biological information such as DNA sequences.

Function

• Since a biometric card acts as a portable medical database, a health-care institution can use the card to access a cardholder's complete medical information. In situations where a person cannot communicate, a doctor can view the card's information to see what kinds of treatment she can provide to the cardholder.

Benefits

• Industries have begun using biometric cards to not only store medical histories, but to also validate a person's identity. Since fingerprint and iris information is believed to be unique to each person, biometric cards have started to become acceptable forms of identification at places such as airports.