Multitier biometric template security using cryptographic salts and personal image identification

Abstract

Security of biometric template is the most challenging aspect of biometric identification system. Storing the biometric template in the database increases the chance of compromising it which may lead to serious threat and misuse of the individual identity. This paper proposes a novel and computationally simpler approach to store a biometric sample in the form of template by using cryptographic salts. Use of Personal Image Identification (PII) makes the proposed algorithm more robust and adds another tier of security. The saltcrypted templates are created and stored instead of storing the actual biometric sample. The algorithm has been analytically proved computationally simple compared to the existing template security mechanisms. The structure of saltcrypted template is entirely dependent on user interaction through PII. Actual template is not stored at any point of time which adds new dimension to the security and hence to individual identity. The accuracy of the proposed method is equally good as the recent methods with less computational complexity.