BS ISO/IEC 39794-16:2021

What is ISO/IEC 39794‑16 about?   

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 is the 16th part of an international standard that discusses the extensible biometric data interchange formats. 

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 is intended to provide a generic extensible full-body image data format for biometric recognition applications requiring an exchange of human full-body image data. Typical applications are: 

• Automated body biometric verification and identification of an unknown individual or cadaver (one-to-one as well as one-to-many comparison) 
• Support for human verification of identity by comparison of individuals against full-body images 
• Support for human examination of full-body images with sufficient resolution to allow a human examiner to verify the identity or identify a living individual or a cadaver 

The structure of the data format in ISO/IEC 39794‑16 is compatible with ISO/IEC 39794-5. In addition to the data format, it also specifies application-specific profiles including scene constraints, photographic properties, and digital image attributes like image spatial sampling rate, image size, etc. 

Who is ISO/IEC 39794‑16  for? 

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 on extensible biometric data interchange format is useful for: 

• Forensic laboratories 
• Healthcare department 
• High-security zones 
• IT companies 
• Government agencies 
• Biometric device manufacturer companies 

Why should you use ISO/IEC 39794‑16? 

There is very little guidance covering full-body imaging for cross-border or law enforcement biometric recognition purposes. There is a need for guidance for the use of high-quality digital cameras and video surveillance devices, as well as guidance on full-body data interchange structure semantics, syntax, and format for the collection and use of full-body image data in biometric recognition scenarios.  

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 can therefore be helpful for the description of the full-body biometric characteristics and associated non-biometric information for identification purposes in disaster victim and law enforcement scenarios (e.g. victim identification, unknown bodies, and missing individuals). 

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 gives you a specific extensible biometric data interchange format for cross-border interoperability enabling you full-body images. This full-body image data standardization helps you to ensure the threshold quality for database images, which is very helpful for the users to identify and verify using video surveillance and other similar system-generated images. 

ISO/IEC 39794‑16 lays out methods to enable applications on a wide variety of devices, including devices that have limited data storage, and to improve biometric recognition accuracy, scene constraints (lighting, pose, expression, etc.), photographic properties (positioning, camera focus, etc.), and digital image attributes (image resolution, image size, etc.).