Parameter management schemes for cancelable biometrics

Abstract

Protecting biometric information is a critical issue in biometric systems, since physical characteristics such as fingerprints, irises, face and vein patterns, cannot be changed or revoked like passwords. To address this issue, an authentication scheme called cancelable biometrics has been studied, in which the biometric features are transformed by a kind of encryption or one-way function and matched without restoring the original features. The transformation function is determined by a user-specific parameter, which plays a similar roll as an encryption key. To secure biometric features using the cancelable biometrics, the parameters have to be managed properly. In this paper, we review several naive schemes for parameter management and point out that they reduce the usability of authentication systems. Then we propose a novel parameter management scheme based on server-side parameter management and authentication protocols using one-time parameters and one-time templates. Our scheme makes it possible to realize a cancelable biometric authentication system with high usability and security.