This part of ISO/IEC 29109 specifies the concepts, test types and conformance testing methodologies to test biometric data interchange records, as specified in ISO/IEC 19794, or computer algorithms that create biometric data interchange records. This part of ISO/IEC 29109 defines two types (A and B) and three levels (1, 2 and 3) of conformance testing, but it only provides a detailed description and methodology for the three levels of Type A testing. In the case of the first two levels, there are many common test elements, and so the assertion language for specifying Level 1 and Level 2 test assertions is defined in this part of ISO/IEC 29109. ISO/IEC 29109 is not concerned with testing of other characteristics of biometric products or other types of testing of biometric products (i.e. acceptance, performance, robustness, security).

This part of ISO/IEC 29109 explicitly does not cover the following areas:

— detailed test elements and assertions or descriptions of any mandatory standard datasets required for testing, which are provided in the other parts of ISO/IEC 29109, each of which specifies conformance testing for a specific base standard;

— testing whether implementations under test (IUTs) that claim to be able to use conformant biometric data interchange records can correctly process such biometric data interchange records (Type B testing).