Project 1644 - ISO/IEC 19784-1:2006, Information technology — Biometric application programming interface —
Part 1: BioAPI specification

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.