Tech5 contactless fingerprint biometrics for mobile devices unveiled

Tech5 has launched its contactless mobile fingerprint biometrics-capturing technology, along with an enhanced artificial intelligence-based fingerprint matching algorithm the company says provides high accuracy with low quality fingerprint images.

T5-AirSnap Finger uses a smartphone’s built-in camera to perform finger detection, enhancement, image processing and scaling, generating images that can be transmitted for identity verification or registration within seconds, according to the announcement. The resulting images are suitable for use with standard AFIS solutions, and comparison against legacy datasets, a subject addressed in NIST guidance earlier this year.

The touchless technology can also run liveness checks, Tech5 says.

The new algorithm requires 5- to 10-times less hardware resources, compared to competitors’ algorithms, Tech5 says.

The company says the contactless biometric systems is ready to be deployed for civil and criminal applications.

“T5-AirSnap Finger can be deployed in countless use cases, including digital onboarding and verification for banking, national ID or vaccination programmes, access control, and any other situation in which fingerprint capture is required,” comments Tech5 Co-founder and CEO Machiel van der Harst.

Contactless fingerprint biometrics captured with T5-AirSnap Finger can be sent to a central identity management system or used for local identity verification on the same device. The technology is available as an SDK and as part of the recently-released T5-Digital ID toolkit. The company says it can be used for 4-4-1-1 self-capture or 4-4-2 assisted mode by operators.

“T5-AirSnap Finger helps solve pandemic-related concerns related to the use of touch technologies,” says Rahul Parthe, co-founder, chairman and CTO of Tech5. “This technology, which we at Tech5 developed with different objectives in mind far before the pandemic, is designed to increase the scalability of fingerprint-based solutions and reduce the dependency on costly purpose-built hardware that traditionally drives up costs in large-scale projects. T5-AirSnap Finger is a frictionless and efficient tool that does not require mobile device calibration.”

Van der Harst says T5-AirSnap Finger has already been tested by some Tech5 partners, and is currently in use in Latin America and Africa.

The company also plans to release an iris biometrics solution, T5-AirSnap Iris, in the near future.

Article Topics

AFIS  |  biometric identification  |  biometric liveness detection  |  biometrics  |  contactless  |  digital identity  |  fingerprint recognition  |  identity verification  |  SDK  |  smartphones  |  TECH5