1. A method of authenticating users comprising: capturing biometric authentication data of a user and processing the captured biometric data into an image with a communications device, and communicating the captured biometric data image to an authentication system; determining an authentication region of interest of the captured biometric data image and a gray scale image from the captured biometric data image; applying a transformation against the gray scale image to align the gray scale image with an enrollment gray scale image generated during enrollment of the user; generating an authentication mask; applying the transformation against the authentication mask to align the authentication mask with an enrollment mask generated during enrollment of the user in the authentication system; generating a biometric template from the aligned gray scale image; comparing the authentication mask against the enrollment mask to determine a region common to both; and conducting a biometric authentication matching transaction with biometric data, included in the biometric template, that is within the common region.