Researchers developing cancelable combined fingerprint and finger vein system

Researchers at Australia’s Edith Cowan University (ECU) are developing technology to scan fingerprints and finger veins in combination, which they say is not prone to the spoofing attacks possible with current biometric technologies, and also provides exponentially better recognition.

The system in development uses an infrared sensor to capture vein images, and protects templates with techniques including encryption and revocability.

“Cancelable biometrics is an important template protection technique, which implements a one-way transformation to secure original biometric data,” the researchers write in the paper presenting the technology. “This one-way transformation is mathematically non-invertible and a compromised template can be easily revoked and replaced with another transformed template just by changing transformation parameters.”

Lead researcher Dr. Wencheng Yang of the ECU Security Research Institute (ECUSRI) says the technology could be common in five to ten years.

“In the future, we’ll need more security, because threats are always evolving,” Dr Yang said. “While fingerprints are better than other existing security systems, there are problems. We leave fingerprints everywhere and they can be duplicated using adhesives like tape or even Play Dough. Facial recognition is also limited, because high-resolution imagery is easy – but there is no easy way for someone to see inside your body.”

The research paper “A Fingerprint and Finger-vein Based Cancelable Multi-biometric System” is published in the June issue of the journal Pattern Recognition.

Article Topics

Australia  |  biometrics research  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  vein recognition