BIO-key awarded US patent for utilization of biometric data

Jun 19, 2018, 10:23 am EDT | Stephen Mayhew

BIO-key announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company Patent 10,002,244 for the Utilization of Biometric Data.

The patent leverages the continuous stream of partial fingerprint, facial or other biometric captures that occur as a user interacts with a device that incorporates an in-screen fingerprint scanner or facial recognition camera. By retaining these incidental captures on the device and analyzing them for consistency with previously enrolled biometric data, this technique enables a frictionless, continuous, passive authentication process for greater persistent security. An application can also request an active authentication using the same scanner, thereby providing a flexible spectrum of authentication choices.

“Surveys show that fingerprint and facial biometric authentication is already preferred over other strong authentication methods because of its convenience and well-documented accuracy advantages,” explains Mira LaCous, BIO-key’s CTO. “This innovation transforms what has traditionally been active-only biometric authentication modalities to support active or passive biometric methods providing stronger security and greater choice for our partners and customers. This is highly applicable to on-device authentication as well as to enterprise or cloud-based IDaaS federated identity solutions. Given this technology’s ability to enhance the ease of use of biometrics and make the authentication process virtually invisible, we are excited by its potential to drive growth in biometric integration and utilization across a variety of applications.”

According to announcement, BIO-key says this patent should enable the company to capitalize on the transition of mobile devices to in-screen biometric sensors that eliminate the need for a dedicated fingerprint sensor or a facial recognition camera. The biometric authentication and security solutions provider says it believes the patent claims are broad enough to be applied to biometric sensors located anywhere on a device.