There are some general similarities.
In both cases, the idea is to take a sample from the world—be it somebody's fingerprint line or their facial image alike—and compare it with some stored representation that you have and that you're expecting will provide a match.
The difficulty arises when the variability in the live capture from the person you're trying to identify...it can vary over time. You always have to account for that variability in attempting the match to the gallery of stored information.
Now—