The security and privacy issues derived from unsecurely storing biometrics templates in biometric authentication/ recognition systems have opened a new research area about how to secure the stored biometric templates. Biometrics-based key generation is the newest approach that provides not only a mechanism to protect stored biometric templates in authentication/ recognition systems, but also a method to integrate biometric systems with cryptosystems. Therefore, this approach has attracted much attention from researchers worldwide. A review of current research state to summarize the achievements and remaining works is necessary for further works. In this study, we first outlined the requirements and the primary challenges when implementing these systems. We then summarize the proposed techniques and achievements in representative studies on biometrics-based key generation. From that, we give a discussion about the accomplishments and remaining works with the corresponding challenges in order to provide a direction for further researches in this area.