Biometric Privacy Research Articles

Multibiometric Cryptosystem: Model Structure and Performance Analysis

Single biometric cryptosystems were developed to obtain win-win scenarios for security and privacy. They are seriously threatened by spoof attacks, in which a forged biometric copy or artificially recreated biometric data of a legitimate user may be used to spoof a system. Meanwhile, feature alignment and quantization greatly degrade the accuracy of single biometric cryptosystems. In this paper, by trying to bind multiple biometrics to cryptography, a cryptosystem named multibiometric cryptosystem (MBC), is demonstrated from the theoretical point of view. First, an MBC with two fusion levels: fusion at the biometric level, and fusion at the cryptographic level, is formally defined. Then four models, namely biometric fusion model, <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">MN</i> -split model, nonsplit model, and package model, adopted at those two levels for fusion are presented. Shannon entropy analysis shows that even if the biometric ciphertexts and some biometric traits are disclosed, the new constructions still can achieve consistently data security and biometric privacy. In addition, the achievable accuracy is analyzed in terms of false acceptance rate/false rejection rate at each model. Finally, a comparison on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the proposed models is discussed.

Biometrics, Evidence, and Personal Privacy

Electronic biometrical identification has been around for many years, but only now is the technology becoming reliable and within the price range of the common corporation. What will be the legal impact of all this personal, biometric information floating around in cyberspace?

Biometrics: privacy's foe or privacy's friend?

From the INS to ATM's, both the public and private sectors are making extensive use of biometrics for human recognition. As this technology becomes more economically viable and technically perfected, and thus more commonplace, the field of biometrics will spark legal and policy concerns. Critics inevitably compare biometrics to Big Brother and the loss of individual privacy. The probiometric lobby generally stresses the greater security and improved service that the technology provides. Is biometrics privacy's friend or privacy's foe? This paper explores the various arguments for and against biometrics and contends that while biometrics may pose legitimate privacy concerns, these issues can be adequately addressed. In the final analysis, biometrics emerges as privacy's friend.