This invention provides for progressive processing of biometric samples to facilitate verification of an authorized user. The initial processing is performed by a security token. Due to storage space and processing power limitations, excessive false rejections may occur. To overcome this shortfall, the biometric sample is routed to a stateless server, which has significantly greater processing power and data enhancement capabilities. The stateless server receives, processes and returns the biometric sample to the security token for another attempt at verification using the enhanced biometric sample. In a second embodiment of the invention, a second failure of the security token to verify the enhanced biometric sample sends either the enhanced or raw biometric sample to a stateful server. The stateful server again processes the biometric sample and performs a one to many search of a biometric database. The biometric database contains the master set of enrolled biometric templates associated with all authorized users. Signals generated by the stateful server are used by the security token to allow or deny access to a resource or function. In both embodiments of the invention, the heuristics remain with the security token.