Generating Cancelable Fingerprint Templates

—Biometrics-based authentication systems offer obvious usability advantages over traditional password and token-based authentication schemes. However, biometrics raises several privacy concerns. A biometric is permanently associated with a user and cannot be changed. Hence, if a biometric identifier is compromised, it is lost forever and possibly for every application where the biometric is used. Moreover, if the same biometric is used in multiple applications, a user can potentially be tracked from one application to the next by cross-matching biometric databases. In this paper, we demonstrate several methods to generate multiple cancelable identifiers from fingerprint images to overcome these problems. In essence, a user can be given as many biometric identifiers as needed by issuing a new transformation “key.” The identifiers can be cancelled and replaced when compromised. We empirically compare the performance of several algorithms such as Cartesian, polar, and surface foldin...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: PAMI
• Authors: Nalini K. Ratha, Sharat Chikkerur, Jonathan H. Connell, Ruud M. Bolle
• Keywords: Biometric, Biometric Databases, Biometric Identifier, PAMI 2007