Fusion-based encryption scheme for cancelable fingerprint recognition

Abstract

This paper presents a fingerprint image encryption scheme based on fingerprint image fusion with another visible image that is rich in details. The encryption process is performed with chaotic Baker map, which has large immunity to noise. The image fusion process is performed with the Haar wavelet transform, and it can be implemented with the average or maximum fusion rule. The fusion process is performed, because fingerprint images are not rich in details, and hence the direct application of chaotic Baker map encryption will not be efficient for encrypting this type of images. To obtain an image that is rich in details, it is possible to use another encrypted image with a strong ciphering algorithm such as the RC6. Several perspectives are considered for performance evaluation of the proposed encryption scheme including visual inspection, histogram analysis, correlation coefficient, entropy analysis, processing time, and the effect of noise after decryption. The proposed fingerprint encryption scheme is appropriate for cancelable biometric applications to preserve the privacy of users by keeping their original fingerprints away from usage in the recognition system. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed image encryption scheme gives a proficient and secure path for unique encrypted fingerprints. Both Equal Error Rate (EER) and Area under Receiver Operating Characteristic (AROC) curve are used for performance evaluation of the proposed cancelable fingerprint recognition scheme revealing high performance.