Biometric Identification

Presented to theMinnesota Futurists

May 3, 2008David Keenan

Biometrics

• Measurement of living systems

• Currently – the study of methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits.

Our Context

• We will concentrate our attention on biometric systems for personal identification

Classification of some biometric traits

Two main classesPhysiological - related to

the shape of the body– Fingerprints used >100 years– Palm prints– Hand geometry – Hand veins – Iris recognition – Retina scan– Ear canal– Face recognition– Facial thermogram– DNA

• Behavioral - related to the behavior of a person.

– Signature– Keystroke dynamics – Voice

Comparison of various biometric technologies

Human characteristics can be used for biometrics in terms of the following parameters:

• Universality each person should have the characteristic

• Uniqueness can the biometric separate one individual from another

• Permanence measures how well a biometric resists aging.

• Collectability whether a biometric can be measured quantitatively

• Performance accuracy, speed, and robustness of technology used

• Acceptability degree of approval of a technology

• Circumvention ease of use of a substitute

Comparison of various biometric technologies

according to A. K. Jain (H=High, M=Medium, L=Low)

Biometrics: Univer-sality

Unique-ness

Perman-ence

Collect-ability

Perform-ance

Accept-ability

Circum-vention*

Face H L M H L H L

Fingerprint M H H M H M H

Hand geometry M M M H M M M

Keystrokes L L L M L M M

Hand veins M M M M M M H

Iris H H H M H L H

Retinal scan H H M L H L H

Signature L L L H L H L

Voice M L L M L H L

Facial thermograph H H L H M H H

Odor H H H L L M L

DNA H H H L H L L

Gait M L L H L H M

Ear Canal M M H M M H M

Steps in a Biometric System• Enrollment: The first time you use a biometric system, it

records basic information about you, like your name or an identification number. It then captures an image or recording of your specific trait.

• Storage: Contrary to what you may see in movies, most systems don't store the complete image or recording. They instead analyze your trait and translate it into a code or graph. Some systems also record this data onto a smart card that you carry with you.

• Comparison: The next time you use the system, it compares the trait you present to the information on file. Then, it either accepts or rejects that you are who you claim to be.

Components of a Biometric System

• A sensor that detects the characteristic being used for identification

• A computer that reads and stores the information

• Software that analyzes the characteristic, translates it into a graph or code and performs the actual comparisons

Block Diagram of System

Functions

A biometric system can provide the following two functions:

• Verification Authenticates its users in conjunction with a smart card, username or ID number. The biometric template captured is compared with that stored against the registered user either on a smart card or database for verification.

• Identification Authenticates its users from the biometric characteristic alone without the use of smart cards, usernames or ID numbers. The biometric template is compared to all records within the database and a closest match score is returned. The closest match within the allowed threshold is deemed the individual and authenticated.

Performance Measurement• false accept rate (FAR) or false match rate (FMR): the probability that the system

incorrectly declares a successful match between the input pattern and a non-matching pattern in the database. Measures the percent of invalid inputs being accepted.

• false reject rate (FRR) or false non-match rate (FNMR): the probability that the

system incorrectly declares failure of match between the input pattern and the matching template in the database. Measures the percent of valid inputs being rejected.

• relative operating characteristic (ROC): In general, the matching algorithm performs a decision using a threshold. In biometric systems the FAR and FRR can typically be traded off against each other by changing those parameters.

• equal error rate (EER): the rate at which both accept and reject errors are equal. The lower the EER, the more accurate the system is considered to be.

• failure to enroll rate (FTE or FER): the percentage of data input is considered invalid and fails to input into the system. Failure to enroll happens when the data obtained by the sensor are considered invalid or of poor quality.

• failure to capture rate (FTC): Within automatic systems, the probability that the system fails to detect a biometric characteristic when presented correctly.

• template capacity: the maximum number of sets of data which can be input in to the system.

State of the Art of Biometric Recognition Systems

Biometrics Equal Error Ratio

False Accept Ratio

False Reject Ratio

Subjects Comment Reference

Face n.a. 1% 10% 37437 Varied lighting, indoor/outdoor

FRVT (2002)

Fingerprint n.a. 1% 0.1% 25000 US Government operational data

FpVTE (2003)

Fingerprint 2% 2% 2% 100 Rotation and exaggerated skin distortion

FVC (2004)

Hand geometry 1% 2% 0.1% 129 With rings and improper placement

(2005)

Iris < 1% 0.94% 0.99% 1224 Indoor environment

ITIRT (2005)

Iris 0.01% 0.0001% 0.2% 132 Best conditions

NIST (2005)

Keystrokes 1.8% 7% 0.1% 15 During 6 months period

(2005)

Voice 6% 2% 10% 310 Text independent, multilingual

NIST (2004)

Fingerprint Identification • Fingerprints remain constant throughout life.

• In over 140 years of fingerprint comparison worldwide, no two fingerprints have ever been found to be alike, not even in identical twins.

• Good fingerprint scanners have been installed in PDAs like the iPaq Pocket PC; so scanner technology is also easy.

• Requires clean hands.

• Fingerprint identification involves comparing the pattern of ridges and furrows on the fingertips, as well as the minutiae points of a specimen print with a database of prints on file.

Images from Consumer Guide Products and Elecom

Sidebar - Fingerprint• Pay By Touch was a privately held company

which enabled consumers to pay for goods and services with a swipe of their finger on a biometric sensor. It allowed secure access to checking, credit card, loyalty, healthcare, and other personal information, through the unique characteristics of an individual's biometric features, thereby creating a highly secure anti-identity theft platform.

• Based in San Francisco, CA with 10 offices worldwide, Pay By Touch had over 800 employees and provided retailers with products in biometric financial transactions, biometric age verification, loyalty and personalized marketing, and payment processing.

• On March 19th, 2008, without notifying their customers, Pay By Touch shut down and is no longer in operation.

Hand and Finger Geometry• Hands and fingers are unique -- but not as unique as

other traits, like fingerprints or irises. • Businesses and schools typically use hand and

finger geometry readers to authenticate users, not to identify them.

• Disney theme parks use finger geometry readers to grant ticket holders admittance to different parts of the park.

• Systems that measure hand and finger geometry use a digital camera and light. You place your hand on a flat surface, aligning your fingers against several pegs to ensure an accurate reading. Then, a camera takes one or more pictures of your hand and the shadow it casts. It uses this information to determine the length, width, thickness and curvature of your hand or fingers. It translates that information into a numerical template.

Strengths and Weaknesses • Since hands and fingers are less distinctive than

fingerprints or irises, some people are less likely to feel that the system invades their privacy. However, many people's hands change over time due to injury, changes in weight or arthritis.

Photo courtesy Ingersoll-Rand

Vein Geometry• A person's veins are completely unique. • Twins don't have identical veins, and a person's veins differ

between their left and right sides. • Many veins are not visible through the skin, making them

extremely difficult to counterfeit or tamper with. Their shape also changes very little as a person ages.

Vein scanners use near-infrared light to reveal the patterns in a person’s veins.

• Place your finger, wrist, palm or the back of your hand on or near the scanner. A camera takes a digital picture using near-IR light. The hemoglobin in your blood absorbs the light, so veins appear black in the picture. Software creates a reference template based on the shape and location of the vein structure.

• Scanners that analyze vein geometry are completely different from vein scanning tests that happen in hospitals. Vein scans for medical purposes usually use radioactive particles. Biometric security scans use light that is similar to the light that comes from a remote control.

Image from HowStuffWorks.com and Fujitsu

Facial Recognition• Humans have always had the innate ability to recognize and distinguish between faces, yet

computers only recently have shown the same ability.

• Identix®, a company based in Minnesota, is one of many developers of facial recognition technology. Its software, FaceIt®, can pick someone's face out of a crowd, extract the face from the rest of the scene and compare it to a database of stored images. In order for this software to work, it has to know how to differentiate between a basic face and the rest of the background. Facial recognition software is based on the ability to recognize a face and then measure the various features of the face.

• Every face has numerous, distinguishable landmarks, the different peaks and valleys that make up facial features. FaceIt defines these landmarks as nodal points. Each human face has approximately 80 nodal points. Some of these measured by the software are:

– Distance between the eyes – Width of the nose – Depth of the eye sockets – The shape of the cheekbones – The length of the jaw line

• These nodal points are measured creating a numerical code, called a faceprint, representing the face in the database.

Photo © Identix Inc.

Facial Recognition

Iris Scanning• Iris scanning - at the heart of the system is a CCD digital

camera. It uses both visible and near-IR light to take a clear, high-contrast picture of an iris.

• The iris is a visible but protected structure, and it does not usually change over time. Most of the time, people's eyes also remain unchanged after eye surgery, and blind people can use iris scanners as long as their eyes have irises. Eyeglasses and contact lenses typically do not interfere or cause inaccurate readings.

• When you look into an iris scanner, either the camera focuses automatically or you use a mirror or audible feedback from the system to make sure that you are positioned correctly. Usually, your eye is 3 to 10 inches from the camera. When the camera takes a picture, the computer locates:

– The center of the pupil – The edge of the pupil – The edge of the iris – The eyelids and eyelashes– It then analyzes the patterns in the iris and translates them into a code.

Photos courtesy Iridian Technologies

Iris Scanning • Becoming more common in high-security applications because

people's eyes are so unique (false match rate is 1 in 1078)

• They also allow more than 200 points of reference for comparison, as opposed to 60 or 70 points in fingerprints.

• Iridian Technologies, who hold the patents on iris recognition, claim that the iris is the most accurate and invariable of biometrics, and that their system is the most accurate form of biometric technology.

• Iridian's system also has the benefit of extremely swift comparisons. The compay claims that it can match an iris against a database of 100,000 reference samples in 2-3 seconds, whereas a fingerprint search against a comparable database might take 15 minutes.

Retinal Scanning

• Some people confuse iris scans with retinal scans. • Retinal scans, however, are an older technology that

required a bright light to illuminate a person's retina. • The sensor would then take a picture of the blood

vessel structure in the back of the person's eye. • Some people found retinal scans to be uncomfortable

and invasive. • People's retinas also change as they age, which could

lead to inaccurate readings. • Still used in some high security facilities.

DNA

• The key to DNA evidence lies in comparing the DNA from the scene of a crime with a suspect's DNA. To do this, investigators have to do three things: – Collect DNA from the subject (intrusive and messy)– Analyze the DNA to create a DNA profile (slow and costly)– Compare the profile to a database (not well populated)

• DNA can be extracted from almost any tissue, including hair, fingernails, bones, teeth and bodily fluids.

• The most commonly used database in the United States is called CODIS, which stands for Combined DNA Index System. CODIS is maintained by the FBI.

Other methods

Physiological• Ear shape recognition• Body odor recognition• Dental pattern recognition

Behavioral• Voice print recognition • Signature recognition• Keystroke analysis

Privacy Concerns• Some people object to biometrics for cultural or religious reasons.

• Others imagine a world in which cameras identify and track them as they walk down the street, following their activities and buying patterns without their consent. They wonder whether companies will sell biometric data the way they sell e-mail addresses and phone numbers. People may also wonder whether a huge database will exist somewhere that contains vital information about everyone in the world, and whether that information would be safe there.

• At this point, however, biometric systems don't have the capability to store and catalog information about everyone in the world. Most store a minimal amount of information about a relatively small number of users. They don't generally store a recording or real-life representation of a person's traits -- they convert the data into a code. Most systems also work in only in the one specific place where they're located, like an office building or hospital. The information in one system isn't necessarily compatible with others, although several organizations are trying to standardize biometric data.

Other ConcernsIn addition to the potential for invasions of privacy, critics raise

several concerns about biometrics, such as:

• Over reliance: The perception that biometric systems are foolproof might lead people to forget about daily, common-sense security practices and to protect the system's data.

• Accessibility: Some systems can't be adapted for certain populations, like elderly people or people with disabilities.

• Interoperability: In emergency situations, agencies using different systems may need to share data, and delays can result if the systems can't communicate with each other.

• Cleanliness: Does the fingerprint scanner or iris scanner have germs or some debris from previous uses

Electronic Freedom Foundation Concerns

• Biometric technology is inherently individuating and interfaces easily to database technology, making privacy violations easier and more damaging. If we are to deploy such systems, privacy must be designed into them from the beginning, as it is hard to retrofit complex systems for privacy.

• Biometric systems are useless without a well-considered threat model. Before deploying any such system on the national stage, we must have a realistic threat model, specifying the categories of people such systems are supposed to target, and the threat they pose in light of their abilities, resources, motivations and goals. Any such system will also need to map out clearly in advance how the system is to work, in both in its successes and in its failures.

• Biometrics are no substitute for quality data about potential risks. No matter how accurately a person is identified, identification alone reveals nothing about whether a person is a terrorist. Such information is completely external to any biometric ID system.

Electronic Freedom Foundation Concerns

• Biometric identification is only as good as the initial ID. The quality of the initial "enrollment" or "registration" is crucial. Biometric systems are only as good as the initial identification, which in any foreseeable system will be based on exactly the document-based methods of identification upon which biometrics are supposed to be an improvement. A terrorist with a fake passport would be issued a US visa with his own biometric attached to the name on the phony passport. Unless the terrorist A) has already entered his biometrics into the database, and B) has garnered enough suspicion at the border to merit a full database search, biometrics won't stop him at the border.

• Biometric identification is often overkill for the task at hand. It is not necessary to identify a person (and to create a record of their presence at a certain place and time) if all you really want to know is whether they're entitled to do something or be somewhere. When in a bar, customers use IDs to prove they're old enough to drink, not to prove who they are, or to create a record of their presence.

Electronic Freedom Foundation Concerns

• Some biometric technologies are discriminatory.A nontrivial percentage of the population cannot present suitable features to participate in certain biometric systems. Many people have fingers that simply do not "print well." Even if people with "bad prints" represent 1% of the population, this would mean massive inconvenience and suspicion for that minority. And scale matters. The INS, for example, handles about 1 billion distinct entries and exits every year. Even a seemingly low error rate of 0.1% means 1 million errors, each of which translates to INS resources lost following a false lead.

• The cost of failure is high. If you lose a credit card, you can cancel it and get a new one. If you lose a biometric, you've lost it for life. Any biometric system must be built to the highest levels of data security, including transmission that prevents interception, storage that prevents theft, and system-wide architecture to prevent both intrusion and compromise by corrupt or deceitful agents within the organization

Electronic Freedom Foundation Concerns

• The chronic, longitudinal capture of biometric data is useful for surveillance purposes. Biometric systems entail repeat surveillance, requiring an initial capture and then later captures.

• Another major issue relates to the "voluntariness" of capture.

• Some biometrics, like faces, voices, and fingerprints, are easily "grabbed."

• Other biometrics, at least under present technology, must be consciously "given."

• It is difficult, for instance, to capture a scan of a person's retina or to gather a hand geometry image without the subject's cooperation.

• Easily grabbed biometrics are a problem because people can't control when they're being put into the system or when they're being tracked. But even hard-to-grab biometrics involve a trust issue in the biometric capture device and the overall system architecture.

Electronic Freedom Foundation Concerns

Tracking• By far the most significant negative aspect of biometric ID systems

is their potential to locate and track people physically. While many surveillance systems seek to locate and track, biometric systems present the greatest danger precisely because they promise extremely high accuracy. Whether a specific biometric system actually poses a risk of such tracking depends on how it is designed.

• Why should we care about perfect tracking? EFF believes that perfect tracking is inimical to a free society. A society in which everyone's actions are tracked is not, in principle, free. It may be a livable society, but would not be our society.

• EFF believes that perfect surveillance, even without any deliberate abuse, would have an extraordinary chilling effect on artistic and scientific inventiveness and on political expression. This concern underlies constitutional protection for anonymity, both as an aspect of First Amendment freedoms of speech and association, and as an aspect of Fourth Amendment privacy.

Some Current Biometric Initiatives • Sec. 403(c) of the USA-PATRIOT Act specifically requires the

federal government to "develop and certify a technology standard that can be used to verify the identity of persons" applying for or seeking entry into the United States on a U.S. visa "for the purposes of conducting background checks, confirming identity, and ensuring that a person has not received a visa under a different name."

• The recently enacted Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, Sec. 303(b)(1), requires that only "machine-readable, tamper-resistant visas and other travel and entry documents that use biometric identifiers" shall be issued to aliens by October 26, 2004. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the State Department currently are evaluating biometrics for use in U.S. border control pursuant to EBSVERA.

Australia• Visitors intending to visit Australia may soon have to submit to

biometric authentication as part of the Smartgate system, linking individuals to their visas and passports.

• Biometric data are already collected from some visa applicants by Immigration.

• Australia is the first country to introduce a Biometrics Privacy Code, which is established and administered by the Biometrics Institute.

• The Biometrics Institute Privacy Code Biometrics Institute forms part of Australian privacy legislation. The Code includes privacy standards that are at least equivalent to the Australian National Privacy Principles (NPPs) in the Privacy Act and also incorporates higher standards of privacy protection in relation to certain acts and practices..

Brazil• Since 2000, Brazilian citizens have had user ID cards.

• The government to adopted fingerprint-based biometrics based on the work of Dr. Juan Vucetich, who invented one of the most complete tenprint classification systems in existence. The Vucetich system was adopted by most of the other South American countries.

• The ID cards printed in Rio de Janeiro are fully digitized using a 2D bar code with information which can be matched against its owner off-line. The 2D bar code encodes a color photo, a signature, two fingerprints, and other citizen data.

• By the end of 2005, the Brazilian government started the development of its new passport. The new documents started to be released in 2007.

• Brazilian citizens will have their signature, photo, and 10 rolled fingerprints collected during passport requests. All of the data is planned to be stored in ICAO E-passport standard. This allows for contactless electronic reading of the passport content and Citizens ID verification since fingerprint templates and token facial images will be available for automatic recognition.

Germany• Biometrics market in Germany will increase from 12 mil € (2004) to 377 mil €

(2009).

• In May 2005 the Germany approved the implementation of the ePass, a passport issued to all German citizens which contain biometric technology. In circulation since Nov. 2005,it contains a chip that holds a digital photograph and one fingerprint from each hand, usually of the index fingers, though others may be used if these fingers are missing or have extremely distorted prints. A third biometric identifier – iris scans – could be added at a later stage.

• An increase in the prevalence of biometric technology in Germany is an effort to not only keep citizens safe within German borders but also to comply with the current US deadline for visa-waiver countries to introduce biometric passports.

• New requirements for visitors to apply for visas within the country. “Only applicants for long-term visas, which allow more than three months' residence, will be affected by the planned biometric registration program. The new work visas will also include fingerprinting, iris scanning, and digital photos”.

Iraq• Biometrics are being used extensively in Iraq to catalog as many

Iraqis as possible providing Iraqis with a verifiable identification card, immune to forgery.

• During account creation, the collected biometrics information is logged into a central database which then allows a user profile to be created.

• Even if an Iraqi has lost their ID card, their identification can be found and verified by using their unique biometric information.

• Additional information can also be added to each account record, such as individual personal history. This can help American forces determine whether someone has been causing trouble in the past.

• One major system in use in Iraq is called BISA. This system uses a smartcard and a user's biometrics (fingerpint, iris, and face photos) to ensure they are authorized access to a base or facility.

• Another is called BAT for Biometric Automated Tool.

Israel• Biometrics have been used extensively in Israel for several years.

• The border crossing points from Israel to the Gaza Strip and West Bank are controlled by gates through which authorized Palestinians may pass. Upwards of 90,000 Palestinians pass through the turnstiles every day to work in Israel, and each of them has an ID card which has been issued by the Israeli Military at the registration centers. At peak periods more than 15,000 people an hour pass through the gates. The ID card is a smartcard with stored biometrics of fingerprints, facial geometry and hand geometry. In addition there is a photograph printed on the card and a digital version stored on the smartcard chip.

• Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport has a frequent flyer's fast check-in system which is based on the use of a smartcard which holds information relating to the holders hand geometry and fingerprints. For a traveller to pass through the fast path using the smartcard system takes less than 10 seconds.

• The Immigration Police at Tel Aviv Airport use a system of registration for foreign workers that utilizes fingerprint, photograph and facial geometry which is stored against the Passport details of the individual. There is a mobile version of this which allows the police to check on an individual's credentials at any time.

Japan

• Several banks in Japan have adopted palm vein authentication technology on their ATMs.

• This technology which was developed by Fujitsu, among other companies, proved to have low false rejection rate (around 0.01%) and a very low false acceptance rate (less than 0.00008%).

Here at Home• The United States government has become a strong advocate of

biometrics with the increase in security concerns since 9/11.

• Starting in 2005, US passports with facial (image-based) biometric data were scheduled to be produced. Privacy activists in many countries have criticized the technology's use for the potential harm to civil liberties, privacy, and the risk of identity theft.

• Currently, there is some apprehension in the United States (and the European Union) that the information can be "skimmed" and identify people's citizenship remotely for criminal intent, such as kidnapping.

• There also are technical difficulties currently delaying biometric integration into passports in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the rest of the EU. These difficulties include compatibility of reading devices, information formatting, and nature of content (e.g. the US currently expect to use only image data, whereas the EU intends to use fingerprint and image data in their passport RFID biometric chip(s)).

Here at Home• The speech made by President Bush on May 15, 2006,

live from the Oval Office, was very clear: from now on, anyone willing to go legally in the United States in order to work there will be card-indexed and will have to communicate his fingerprints while entering the country.

• "A key part of that system [for verifying documents and work eligibility of aliens] should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper-proof." President George W Bush (Addresses on Immigration Reform, May 15, 2006)

Here at Home• The US Department of Defense (DoD) Common Access

Card, is an ID card issued to all US Service personnel and contractors on US Military sites. This card contains biometric data and digitized photographs. It also has laser-etched photographs and holograms to add security and reduce the risk of falsification. There have been over 10 million of these cards issued.

• According to Jim Wayman, director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University, Walt Disney World is the nation's largest single commercial application of biometrics.

• However, the US Visit program will very soon surpass Walt Disney World for biometrics deployment.

Links

•Basics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics•NIST consortia http://www.biometrics.org/ •US Government http://www.biometrics.gov/•Tech Explained science.howstuffworks.com/biometrics.htm•More Explained electronics.howstuffworks.com/facial-recognition.htm•Privacy Concerns http://www.eff.org/wp/biometrics-whos-watching-you •More basics http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Technology-

Article.asp?ArtNum=13•2008 Conference http://www.biometrics.org/BC2008/index.htm