A biometric and cryptographic processing unit includes a biometric receiver receiving biometric information of a BCU user. A biometric unit of the BCU has a store of biometric information of an authorized BCU user and compares received biometric information with the stored biometric information to determine if the user is an authorized BCU user. A cryptographic unit generates/stores an asymmetric cryptographic public/private key pair associated with each authorized BCU user. An input/output port allows encrypted/unencrypted data to be input to/output from the BCU. The cryptographic unit operates in response to a specific authorized user giving permission to undertake a specific cryptographic operation on data input to the BCU only upon the specific authorized user being determined as an authorized BCU user, whereby a specific private key corresponding to the specific authorized user is enabled for use in the specific cryptographic operation after which the specific private key is disabled.