Fujitsu develops comparison of encrypted biometrics without loss of accuracy or speed

Fujitsu has developed a technology for processing encrypted biometric data without first decrypting it, which the company says has the same accuracy and processing speed as conventional biometric authentication systems. The technology uses palm vein authentication to prevent the degradation of comparison accuracy that typically occurs with encryption, while speeding up the comparison process.

Technologies to authenticate encrypted biometric information have previously been developed, but have shown reduced accuracy or comparison speed.

The company says keeping biometric data constantly encrypted enables the creation of a payment system for secure palm vein authentication in cloud environments via the internet. Fujitsu Laboratories announced the development of an integrated facial and palm vein biometric system for payments in 2018. The new technology will enable biometrics to be used more widely in open environments, which Fujitsu expects to be used more widely for cashless payments, account logins, and physical access control, rather than the closed environments with dedicated connections which conventional biometric authentication systems are typically limited to, according to the announcement.

The new technology generates codes for comparison without compromising accuracy by dynamically adjusting the area size of the image, based on the amount of impact they have on comparison results. This limits the changes to the similarity of feature values due to conversion to a numerical code. The technology can automatically select parts of the biometric image data to convert, enabling authentication speeds Fujitsu claims or on the same level as systems that do not convert images to numerical codes.

The company tested the technology on palm vein data from 10,000 hands, and found similar accuracy and speed to methods that do not convert data to numerical codes. Fujitsu Laboratories technology for generating multiple from a single piece of biometric information also enables varying feature codes for different authentication services, mitigating the risk in the event of a data leak.

Fujitsu plans to commercialize the technology later in 2019, after further increasing the processing speed. The company also launched a new line of solutions based on its palm vein biometrics in July.

Article Topics

accuracy  |  biometric data  |  biometrics  |  encryption  |  Fujitsu  |  palm vein authentication