Cancelable Fingerprint Research Articles

Toward Constructing Cancellable Templates using K-Nearest Neighbour Method

The privacy of biometric data needs to be protected. Cancellable biometrics is proposed as an effective mechanism of protecting biometric data. In this paper a novel scheme of constructing cancellable fingerprint minutiae template is proposed. Specifically, each real minutia point from an original template is mapped to a neighbouring fake minutia in a user-specific randomly generated synthetic template using the k-nearest neighbour method. The recognition template is constructed by collecting the neighbouring fake minutiae of the real minutiae. This scheme has two advantages: (1) An attacker needs to capture both the original template and the synthetic template in order to construct the recognition template; (2) A compromised recognition template can be cancelled easily by replacing the synthetic template. Single-neighboured experiments of self-matching, nonself-matching, and imposter matching are carried out on three databases: DB1B from FVC00, DB1B from FVC02, and DB1 from FVC04. Double-neighboured tests are also conducted for DB1B from FVC02. The results show that the constructed recognition templates can perform more accurately than the original templates and it is feasible to construct cancellable fingerprint templates with the proposed approach.

An Improved Cancelable Fingerprint Template Encryption System Research

For the existing security problem based on Fuzzy Vault algorithm, we propose a cancelable fingerprint template encryption scheme in this paper. The main idea is to firstly construct an irreversible transformation function, and then apply the function to transform the original template and template information is stored after conversion. Experimental results show it effectively prevents the attack from fingerprint template data and improves security of the system by using minutiae descriptor to encrypt abscissa of the vault. The experiment uses public FVC2004 fingerprint database to test, result shows that although the recognition rate of the proposed algorithm is slightly lower than the original program, but the improved algorithm security and complexity are better, and therefore the proposed algorithm is feasible in general.

Cancelable Fingerprint Cryptosystem Using Multiple Spiral Curves and Fuzzy Commitment Scheme

The increased use of biometric-based authentication systems in a variety of applications has made biometric template protection an important issue. Unlike conventional systems, biometric cannot be revoked or changed. This made template protection a critical issue to be considered in the recent years. This paper proposes a cancelable fingerprint cryptosystem using multiple spiral curves and fuzzy commitment scheme. The method is built by combining cancelable biometrics and biometric cryptosystems. First, we compute transformed minutiae features using multiple spiral curves. Further, these transformed features are encrypted using fuzzy commitment scheme. Hence, a secure template is obtained. Experimental results and analysis prove the credibility of proposed method with recently presented methods of fingerprint template protection.

Design of Alignment-Free Cancelable Fingerprint Templates with Zoned Minutia Pairs

Cancelable fingerprint templates effectively protect original fingerprint data by revoking a compromised template and reissuing a new one. Alignment-free cancelable templates require no image pre-alignment and therefore do not suffer from inaccurate singular point detection. In this paper we propose to construct local minutia structures through zoned minutia pairs in the design of alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates. Because the structures formed by zoned minutia pairs are truly local, they are more discriminating, which benefits fingerprint matching, leading to good recognition performance. We also apply a simple yet effective measure to mitigating the risk of the attack via record multiplicity (ARM). The proposed method features a partial discrete Fourier transform-based non-invertible transformation, which is compact and computationally efficient. The new cancelable templates meet the requirements of diversity, revocability, non-invertibility and performance. Evaluated over four public databases, the proposed alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates exhibit superior performance with the Equal Error Rate in the lost-token scenario being 0.19% for FVC2002 DB1, 1% for FVC2002 DB2, 4.29% for FVC2002 DB3 and 9.01% for FVC2004 DB2.

Multi-algorithmic cancelable fingerprint template generation based on weighted sum rule and T-operators

With the emergence of biometric-based authentication systems in real-world applications, template protection in biometrics is a significant issue to be considered in the recent years. This paper presents two feature set computation algorithms, namely nearest neighbor feature set (NNFS) and Delaunay triangle feature set (DTFS), for a fingerprint sample. Further, the match scores obtained from these algorithms are fused using weighted sum rule and T-operators (T-norms and T-conorms). The experimental evaluation done on FVC 2002 databases confirms the credibility of fusion method compared to each individual algorithm used for fusing. The EER obtained for proposed method is 0 %, 0.059 %, and 3.93 % for FVC 2002 DB1, DB2, and DB3 databases, respectively. This paper also aims to prove the effectiveness of applying T-operators for fusion at score level in fingerprint template protection.

A partial Hadamard transform approach to the design of cancelable fingerprint templates containing binary biometric representations

As an important biometric template protection technique, cancelable biometrics provides enhanced security for biometric-based authentication. Representing biometric information in binary form is useful in biometric template protection because it offers simplicity in feature representation and provides benefits in matching and storage. Therefore, it is no surprise that cancelable biometrics often exploits binary biometric representations as resultant templates. However, very often such binary biometric representations contained in cancelable biometrics have security shortfalls, because once they are compromised, the biometric features that they represent are likely to be retrieved. In this paper we propose an efficient non-invertible transformation – the partial Hadamard transform to securely protect binary biometric representations in the design of cancelable biometrics. When this non-invertible transform is applied to the DFT of the binary biometric representations, the resultant templates are complex vectors, from which the original binary vectors cannot be restored. A prominent feature of the proposed approach is that it preserves the stochastic distance between binary vectors after the transformation. This stochastic distance preserving property is theoretically proved and further demonstrated and verified by experiments. The cancelable fingerprint templates designed by the proposed partial Hadamard transform meet the requirements of revocability, diversity, non-invertibility and performance. Matching performance of the designed cancelable templates compares favorably with state-of-the-art methods that also involve binary biometric representations; for example, the Equal Error Rate of the proposed method in the lost-token scenario is 1% for FVC2002 DB1, 2% for FVC2002 DB2 and 5.2% for FVC2002 DB3.

Generating cancellable fingerprint templates based on Delaunay triangle feature set construction

In this study, the authors propose a novel fingerprint template protection scheme that is developed using Delaunay triangulation net constructed from the fingerprint minutiae. The authors propose two methods namely FS_INCIR and FS_AVGLO to construct a feature set from the Delaunay triangles. The feature set computed is quantised and mapped to a 3D array to produce fixed length 1D bit string. This bit string is applied with a DFT to generate a complex vector. Finally, the complex vector is multiplied by user's key to generate a cancellable template. The proposed computation of feature set maintained a good balance between security and performance. These methods are tested on FVC 2002 and FVC 2004 databases and the experimental results show satisfactory performance. Further, the authors analysed the four requirements namely diversity, revocability, irreversibility and accuracy for protecting biometric templates. Thus, the feasibility of proposed scheme is depicted.

Digital holographic-based cancellable biometric for personal authentication

In this paper, we propose a new digital holographic-based cancellable biometric scheme for personal authentication and verification. The realization of cancellable biometric is presented by using an optoelectronic experimental approach, in which an optically recorded hologram of the fingerprint of a person is numerically reconstructed. Each reconstructed feature has its own perspective, which is utilized to generate user-specific fingerprint features by using a feature-extraction process. New representations of the user-specific fingerprint features can be obtained from the same hologram, by changing the reconstruction distance (d) by an amount Δd between the recording plane and the reconstruction plane. This parameter is the key to make the cancellable user-specific fingerprint features using a digital holographic technique, which allows us to choose different reconstruction distances when reissuing the user-specific fingerprint features in the event of compromise. We have shown theoretically that each user-specific fingerprint feature has a unique identity with a high discrimination ability, and the chances of a match between them are minimal. In this aspect, a recognition system has also been demonstrated using the fingerprint biometric of the enrolled person at a particular reconstruction distance. For the performance evaluation of a fingerprint recognition system—the false acceptance ratio, the false rejection ratio and the equal error rate are calculated using correlation. The obtained results show good discrimination ability between the genuine and the impostor populations with the highest recognition rate of 98.23%.

A blind system identification approach to cancelable fingerprint templates

Cancelable biometrics is an important biometric template protection scheme. With no a priori image pre-alignment, alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates do not suffer from inaccurate singular point detection. In this paper, we develop a blind system identification approach to the design of alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates. The binary string, derived from quantized pair-minutiae vectors, is to be secured and its frequency samples act as the input to the proposed algorithm. Motivated by the identifiability of the source signal in blind system identification, we propose to protect the binary string׳s frequency samples, which are treated as the source input, by countering or dissatisfying the identifiability condition so that they cannot be recovered from the output complex vector (transformed template). The proposed transform is irreversible because when the identifiability condition is not met, non-identification of the source input is theoretically guaranteed in blind system identification. Security, matching performance and resource requirement are the main factors in cancelable template design. With the size of the transform parameter key and transformed templates being moderate, the proposed method suits resource-limited applications, e.g., smartcards, driver license and mobile phones. Evaluation of the proposed method over FVC2002 DB1, DB2 and DB3 shows that the new method exhibits favorable performance compared to state-of-the-art alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates.

Multi-algorithmic fingerprint model for cancellable template generation

In this paper we present a multi-algorithmic biometric system comprising the fingerprint biometrics to tackle highly uncertain databases. Two methods were proposed namely, spiral-based method and block-based method to generate cancellable fingerprint templates. Spiral-based method can be used to exploit elements in each contiguous right angled triangle, that are drawn using the invariant distances between reference minutia to every other minutia. In the block-based method, fingerprint image can be tessellated into blocks to get a set of features by considering Euclidean distance from each minutia in reference block to other minutia in blocks which are horizontal, vertical, and diagonal in direction to reference block, and orientation of minutiae. Two biometric methods are fused at score level based on Yager's triangular norm. The experimental evaluations and analysis are performed using the FVC2002 databases. The results show better performance and separation between genuine and imposter distributions.

Kernel PCA enabled bit-string representation for minutiae-based cancellable fingerprint template

Minutiae set is one of the prevalent features used to represent a fingerprint. Many minutiae protection schemes have been proposed in recent literature, but only a few have demonstrated successful conversion from minutiae set to fixed-length bit-string. In this paper, we develop a fixed-length binary cancellable fingerprint template generation scheme based on a minutia descriptor known as the multi-line code (MLC). While retaining the core of MLC algorithm, we transform the unordered and variable-size MLC template into an ordered and fixed-length bit-string using kernel principal components analysis (KPCA) and state-of-the-art binarization techniques. The construction of a proper kernel suited for the scenario was validated using Mercer׳s Theorem. Evaluation of the proposed scheme was performed over several FVC datasets and the best equal-error rate (EER) obtained for the final bit-string is 1.61%. In addition, extensive analysis was done to justify the non-invertibility and revocability property of the cancellable template.

Fingerprint Authentication Schemes for Mobile Devices

In certain applications, fingerprint authentication systems require templates to be stored in databases. The possible leakage of these fingerprint templates can lead to serious security and privacy threats. Therefore, with the frequent use of fingerprint authentication on mobile devices, it has become increasingly important to keep fingerprint data safe. Due to rapid developments in optical equipment, biometric systems are now able to gain the same biometric images repeatedly, so strong features can be selected with precision. Strong features refer to high-quality features which can be easily distinguished from other features in biometric raw images. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm that identifies these strong features with certain probability from a given fingerprint image. Once values are extracted from these features, they are used as the authentication data. Using the geometric information of these strong features, a cancelable fingerprint template can be produced, and the process of extracting values and geometric information is further explained. Because this is a light-weight authentication scheme, this template has practical usage for low performance mobile devices. Finally, we demonstrate that our proposed schemes are secure and that the user’s biometric raw data of the fingerprint are safe, even when the mobile device is lost or stolen.

Improved Hash Functions for Cancelable Fingerprint Encryption Schemes

In order to solve the prealignment problem, this paper constructs new fingerprint features which will not change along with the rotation of fingerprint image. And then the SHA1 algorithm is improved in four aspects: the modification of original register values, the modification of additive constants, the modification of logic functions, the modification of compression functions, then this paper improves the SHA2 algorithm in two aspects: the modification of compression functions and the modification of message word. Based on that, two cancelable and irreversible fingerprint encryption schemes are proposed in this paper. The efficiency analysis and security authentication show that these schemes have enhanced the security without increasing the complexity.

Fingerprint-based crypto-biometric system for network security

Abstract To ensure the secure transmission of data, cryptography is treated as the most effective solution. Cryptographic key is an important entity in this process. In general, randomly generated cryptographic key (of 256 bits) is difficult to remember. However, such a key needs to be stored in a protected place or transported through a shared communication line which, in fact, poses another threat to security. As an alternative to this, researchers advocate the generation of cryptographic key using the biometric traits of both sender and receiver during the sessions of communication, thus avoiding key storing and at the same time without compromising the strength in security. Nevertheless, the biometric-based cryptographic key generation has some difficulties: privacy of biometrics, sharing of biometric data between both communicating parties (i.e., sender and receiver), and generating revocable key from irrevocable biometric. This work addresses the above-mentioned concerns. We propose an approach to generate cryptographic key from cancelable fingerprint template of both communicating parties. Cancelable fingerprint templates of both sender and receiver are securely transmitted to each other using a key-based steganography. Both templates are combined with concatenation based feature level fusion technique and generate a combined template. Elements of combined template are shuffled using shuffle key and hash of the shuffled template generates a unique session key. In this approach, revocable key for symmetric cryptography is generated from irrevocable fingerprint and privacy of the fingerprints is protected by the cancelable transformation of fingerprint template. Our experimental results show that minimum, average, and maximum Hamming distances between genuine key and impostor’s key are 80, 128, and 168 bits, respectively, with 256-bit cryptographic key. This fingerprint-based cryptographic key can be applied in symmetric cryptography where session based unique key is required.

Approach to cryptographic key generation from fingerprint biometrics

In crypto-biometric system CBS, biometric is combined with cryptography. In CBS, either accessing a cryptographic key is controlled with biometric or the key is generated from biometric features. This work is related to the latter approach in CBS. In such a system, protecting the privacy of the biometric data is an important concern. Further, there is a need to generate different cryptographic keys from the same biometric template of a user. Cancellable transformation of biometric data prior to the key generation is known as a solution. In this paper, we propose an approach to generate cryptographic key from cancellable fingerprint templates C

Recognition accuracy of the new fingerprint construct based on a compact minutiae pattern

Instead of using the entire minutiae template to generate a protected fingerprint template, recently a non-invertible cancellable fingerprint construct based on a 3-5 minutiae pattern was proposed as a safer alternative. This paper investigates the recognition accuracy attainable by this new fingerprint construct. It is found that using five samples of a person's reference fingerprint and allowing for a maximum of three authentication attempts provides a genuine user with the best chance of being successfully authenticated. An evaluation of the FAR and FRR in this scenario demonstrates that the new fingerprint construct can be tuned to suit the performance and security requirements of different applications by adjusting the pattern size and matching thresholds. The fingerprint construct is then modified to improve its ability to discriminate between genuine users and impostors. Compared to other non-invertible fingerprint template protection schemes, the performance of the modified fingerprint construct is found to be favourable.

A non-invertible Randomized Graph-based Hamming Embedding for generating cancelable fingerprint template

Biometric technology is likely to provide a new level of security to various applications. Yet if the stored biometric template is compromised, invasion of user privacy is inevitable. Since biometric is irreplaceable and irrevocable, such an invasion implies a permanent loss of identity. In this paper, a fingerprint template protection technique is proposed to secure the fingerprint minutiae. Remarkably, by incorporating Randomized Graph-based Hamming Embedding (RGHE), the generated binary template can be strongly protected against inversion. The proposed method adopts a minutiae descriptor, dubbed as minutiae vicinity decomposition (MVD) to derive a set of randomized geometrical invariant features together with random projection. The discrimination of randomized MVD is then enhanced by User-specific Minutia Vicinities Collection scheme and embedded into a Hamming space by means of Graph-based Hamming Embedding. The resultant binary template enjoys four merits: (1) strong concealment of the minutia vicinity, thus effectively protects the location and orientation of minutiae. (2) Well preservation of the discriminability of MVD in the Hamming space with respect to the Euclidean space without accuracy performance degradation. (3) Template is revocable due to user-specific random projection. (4) Speedy matching attributed to bit-wise operations. Promising experimental results on FVC2002 database vindicate the feasibility of the proposed technique.

A non-invertible cancellable fingerprint construct based on compact minutiae patterns

This paper proposes a new, privacy-preserving fingerprint construct, which consists of a single pattern created from a small subset of minutiae from the corresponding minutiae template. The sparsity of the resulting feature vector ensures that it cannot be used to reconstruct the underlying fingerprint image, while simultaneously allowing for the cancellability of compromised patterns. The proposed construct is, therefore, inherently a non-invertible cancellable fingerprint template protection scheme. Experimental results on the recognition accuracy of patterns consisting of three, four, and five minutiae were very encouraging: an FRR of 0.4% or less was achieved for all three pattern sizes, while the FAR ranged from 2.1% for 5-minutia patterns to 6.5% for 3-minutia patterns. It took about 0.1 seconds to verify a single person, regardless of the pattern size. These results suggest that the proposed fingerprint construct is suitable for deployment in fingerprint-based civilian authentication applications.

Design of alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates via curtailed circular convolution

Fraudulent use of stolen fingerprint data and privacy invasion by tracking individuals unlawfully with shared or stolen fingerprint data justify the significance of fingerprint template protection. With no a priori fingerprint image registration, alignment-free cancelable fingerprint templates do not suffer from inaccurate singular point detection. In this paper, we propose an effective alignment-free method for constructing cancelable fingerprint templates via curtailed circular convolution. The proposed method features an efficient one-way transform, which protects the input binary string such that it cannot be retrieved from the length-reduced, convolved output vector. The transformed template fulfills the requirements of non-invertibility, revocability and diversity for cancelable fingerprint templates. Evaluation of the proposed scheme over FVC2002 DB1, DB2 and DB3 shows that the new method demonstrates satisfactory performance compared to the existing alignment-free cancelable template schemes.

An integrated framework combining Bio-Hashed minutiae template and PKCS15 compliant card for a better secure management of fingerprint cancelable templates

We address in this paper the problem of privacy in fingerprint biometric systems. Today, cancelable techniques have been proposed to deal with this issue. Ideally, such transforms are one-way. However, even if they are with provable security, they remain vulnerable when the user-specific key that achieves cancelability property is stolen. The prominence of the cancelable template confidentiality to maintain the irreversibility property was also demonstrated for many proposed constructions. To prevent possible coming attacks, it becomes important to securely manage this key as well as the transformed template in order to avoid them being leaked simultaneously and thus compromised. To better manage the user credentials of cancelable constructs, we propose a new solution combining a trusted architecture and a cancelable fingerprint template. Therefore, a Bio-Hashed minutiae template based on a chip matching algorithm is proposed. A pkcs15 compliant cancelable biometric system for fingerprint privacy preserving is implemented on a smartcard. This closed system satisfies the safe management of the sensitive templates. The proposed solution is proved to be well resistant to different attacks.