Enhancing the performance of multimodal automated border control systems

Biometric recognition in Automated Border Control (ABC) systems is performed in response to an increased worldwide traffic, by automatically verifying the identity of the passenger during border crossing. Currently, ABC systems seldom use methods for multimodal biometric fusion, which have been proved to increase the recognition accuracy, due to technological and privacy limitations. This paper proposes a framework for the biometric fusion in ABC systems, with the features of being technology-neutral and privacy- compliant, by performing an analysis of the most suitable biometric fusion techniques for ABC systems and considering the current technical and legal limitations

Emerging biometric technologies for Automated Border Control gates

Automated Border Control (ABC) gates, or shortly e-Gates, are systems able to verify automatically the identity of the travelers through the biometric traits, and to grant passage of the border. Biometric technologies make the clearance automation possible, with a positive impact on efficiency, effectiveness, security, and usability of the process. The e-Gate compares biometric data of the traveler from an electronic document against live acquisitions, using different biometric traits. The face emerged in this area as the primary trait used by the e-Gates, with fingerprint and iris more adopted in registered traveler programs. This paper analyzes the main biometric aspects relating to both the human-machine interaction and the technologies used for ABC, and presents the emerging solutions that can produce a performance enhancement

Enhancing fingerprint biometrics in Automated Border Control with adaptive cohorts

Automated Border Control (ABC) systems are being increasingly used to perform a fast, accurate, and reliable verification of the travelers' identity. These systems use biometric technologies to verify the identity of the person crossing the border. In this context, fingerprint verification systems are widely adopted due to their high accuracy and user acceptance. Matching score normalization methods can improve the performance of fingerprint recognition in ABC systems and mitigate the effect of non-idealities typical of this scenario without modifying the existing biometric technologies. However, privacy protection regulations restrict the use of biometric data captured in ABC systems and can compromise the applicability of these techniques. Cohort score normalization methods based only on impostor scores provide a suitable solution, due to their limited use of sensible data and to their promising performance. In this paper, we propose a privacy-compliant and adaptive normalization approach for enhancing fingerprint recognition in ABC systems. The proposed approach computes cohort scores from an external public dataset and uses computational intelligence to learn and improve the matching score distribution. The use of a public dataset permits to apply cohort normalization strategies in contexts in which privacy protection regulations restrict the storage of biometric data. We performed a technological and a scenario evaluation using a commercial matcher currently adopted in real ABC systems and we used data simulating different conditions typical of ABC systems, obtaining encouraging results

Biometric recognition in automated border control : a survey

The increasing demand for traveler clearance at international border crossing points (BCPs) has motivated research for finding more efficient solutions. Automated border control (ABC) is emerging as a solution to enhance the convenience of travelers, the throughput of BCPs, and national security. This is the first comprehensive survey on the biometric techniques and systems that enable automatic identity verification in ABC. We survey the biometric literature relevant to identity verification and summarize the best practices and biometric techniques applicable to ABC, relying on real experience collected in the field. Furthermore, we select some of the major biometric issues raised and highlight the open research areas

Usability in biometric recognition systems

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorBiometric recognition, which is a technology already mature, grows nowadays in several contexts, including forensics, access controls, home automation systems, internet, etc. Now that technology is moving to mobile scenarios, biometric recognition is being also integrated in smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices as a convenient solution for guaranteeing security, complementing other methods such as PIN or passwords. Nevertheless, the use of biometric recognition is not as spread as desired and it is still unknown for a wide percentage of the population. It has been demonstrated [1] that some of the possible reasons for the slow penetration of biometrics could be related to usability concerns. This could lead to various drawbacks like worst error rates due to systems misuses and it could end with users rejecting the technology and preferring other approaches. This Thesis is intended to cover this topic including a study of the current state of the art, several experiments analysing the most relevant usability factors and modifications to a usability evaluation methodology. The chosen methodology is the H-B interaction, carried out by Fernandez-Saavedra [2], based on the ISO/IEC 19795 [3], the HBSI [4], the ISO 9241-210 [5] and on Common Criteria [6]. Furthermore, this work is focused on dealing with accessibility concerns in biometric recognition systems. This topic, usually included into the usability field, has been addressed here separately, though the study of the accessibility has followed the same steps as the usability study: reviewing the state of the art, pointing and analysing the main influential factors and making improvements to the state of the art. The recently published standard EN 301 549 – “Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe” [7] has been also analysed. These two topics have been overcome through the well-known user-centric-design approach. In this way, first the influential factors have been detected. Then, they have been isolated (when possible) and measured. The results obtained have been then interpreted to suggest new updates to the H-B interaction. This 3-steps approach has been applied cyclically and the factors and methodology updated after each iteration. Due to technology and usability trends, during this work, all the systems/applications developed in the experiments have been thought to be mobile directly or indirectly. The biometric modalities used during the experiments performed in this Thesis are those pointed as suitable for biometric recognition in mobile devices: handwritten recognition signature, face and fingerprint recognition. Also, the scenarios and the applications used are in line with the main uses of biometrics in mobile environments, such as sign documents, locking/unlocking devices, or make payments. The outcomes of this Thesis are intended to guide future developers in the way of designing and testing proper usable and accessible biometrics. Finally, the results of this Thesis are being suggested as a new International Standard within ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC37 – Biometric Recognition, as standardization is the proper way of guaranteeing usability and accessibility in future biometric systems. The contributions of this Thesis include: • Improvements to the H-B interaction methodology, including several usability evaluations. • Improvements on the accessibility of the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) products by means of the integration of biometric recognition systems • Adaptation and application of the EN 301 549 to biometric recognition systems.El reconocimiento biométrico, que es una tecnología ya madura, crece hoy en día en varios contextos, incluyendo la medicina forense, controles de acceso, sistemas de automatización del hogar, internet, etc. Ahora que la tecnología se está moviendo a los escenarios móviles, el reconocimiento biométrico está siendo también integrado en los teléfonos inteligentes, tabletas y otros dispositivos móviles como una solución conveniente para garantizar la seguridad, como complemento de otros métodos de seguridad como el PIN o las contraseñas. Sin embargo, el uso del reconocimiento biométrico es todavía desconocido para un amplio porcentaje de la población. Se ha demostrado [1] que algunas de las posibles razones de la lenta penetración de la biometría podrían estar relacionadas con problemas de usabilidad. Esto podría dar lugar a diversos inconvenientes, ofreciendo un rendimiento por debajo de lo esperado debido al mal uso de los sistemas y podría terminar con los usuarios rechazando la tecnología y prefiriendo otros enfoques. Esta tesis doctoral trata este tema incluyendo un estudio del estado actual de la técnica, varios experimentos que analizan los factores de usabilidad más relevantes y modificaciones a una metodología de evaluación de la usabilidad, la "H-B interaction" [2] basada en la ISO / IEC 19795 [3], el HBSI [4], la ISO 9241 [5] y Common Criteria [6]. Además, este trabajo se centra también en los problemas de accesibilidad de los sistemas de reconocimiento biométrico. Este tema, que por lo general se incluye en el campo de la usabilidad, se ha tratado aquí por separado, aunque el estudio de la accesibilidad ha seguido los mismos pasos que el estudio de usabilidad: revisión del estado del arte, análisis de los principales factores influyentes y propuesta de cambios en la metodología H-B interaction. Han sido también analizados los requisitos de accesibilidad para las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en Europa, bajo la norma EN 301 549 [7]. Estos dos temas han sido estudiados a través de un enfoque centrado en el usuario (User Centric Design - UCD). De esta manera, se han detectado los factores influyentes. A continuación, dichos factores han sido aislados (cuando ha sido posible) y medidos. Los resultados obtenidos han sido interpretados para sugerir nuevos cambios a la metodología H-B interaction. Este enfoque de 3 pasos se ha aplicado de forma cíclica a los factores y a la metodología después de cada iteración. Debido a las tendencias tecnológicas y de usabilidad, durante este trabajo, todos los sistemas / aplicaciones desarrolladas en los experimentos se han pensado para ser móviles, directa o indirectamente. Las modalidades utilizadas durante los experimentos realizados en esta tesis doctoral son las que se señalaron como adecuados para el reconocimiento biométrico en dispositivos móviles: la firma manuscrita, la cara y el reconocimiento de huellas dactilares. Además, los escenarios y las aplicaciones utilizadas están en línea con los principales usos de la biometría en entornos móviles, como la firma de documentos, el bloqueo / desbloqueo de dispositivos, o hacer pagos. Los resultados de esta tesis tienen como objetivo orientar a los futuros desarrolladores en el diseño y evaluación de la usabilidad y la accesibilidad en los sistemas de reconocimiento biométrico. Por último, los resultados de esta tesis doctoral se sugerirán como un nuevo estándar de ISO / IEC / JTC1 / SC37 - Biometric Recognition, ya que la normalización es la manera adecuada de garantizar la usabilidad y la accesibilidad en los futuros sistemas biométricos. Las contribuciones de esta tesis incluyen: • Mejora de la metodología de evaluación H-B interaction, incluyendo varias evaluaciones de usabilidad. • Mejora de la accesibilidad de los sistemas de información / electrónicos mediante la integración de sistemas biométricos y varias evaluaciones. • Adaptación y aplicación de la norma de accesibilidad EN 301 549 al campo de los sistemas biométricos.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y AutomáticaPresidente: Patrizio Campisi.- Secretario: Enrique Cabellos Pardo.- Vocal: Marcos Faundez Zanu

BIOMETRIC TECHNOLOGIES FOR AMBIENT INTELLIGENCE

Il termine Ambient Intelligence (AmI) si riferisce a un ambiente in grado di riconoscere e rispondere alla presenza di diversi individui in modo trasparente, non intrusivo e spesso invisibile. In questo tipo di ambiente, le persone sono circondate da interfacce uomo macchina intuitive e integrate in oggetti di ogni tipo. Gli scopi dell\u2019AmI sono quelli di fornire un supporto ai servizi efficiente e di facile utilizzo per accrescere le potenzialit\ue0 degli individui e migliorare l\u2019interazioni uomo-macchina. Le tecnologie di AmI possono essere impiegate in contesti come uffici (smart offices), case (smart homes), ospedali (smart hospitals) e citt\ue0 (smart cities). Negli scenari di AmI, i sistemi biometrici rappresentano tecnologie abilitanti al fine di progettare servizi personalizzati per individui e gruppi di persone. La biometria \ue8 la scienza che si occupa di stabilire l\u2019identit\ue0 di una persona o di una classe di persone in base agli attributi fisici o comportamentali dell\u2019individuo. Le applicazioni tipiche dei sistemi biometrici includono: controlli di sicurezza, controllo delle frontiere, controllo fisico dell\u2019accesso e autenticazione per dispositivi elettronici. Negli scenari basati su AmI, le tecnologie biometriche devono funzionare in condizioni non controllate e meno vincolate rispetto ai sistemi biometrici comunemente impiegati. Inoltre, in numerosi scenari applicativi, potrebbe essere necessario utilizzare tecniche in grado di funzionare in modo nascosto e non cooperativo. In questo tipo di applicazioni, i campioni biometrici spesso presentano una bassa qualit\ue0 e i metodi di riconoscimento biometrici allo stato dell\u2019arte potrebbero ottenere prestazioni non soddisfacenti. \uc8 possibile distinguere due modi per migliorare l\u2019applicabilit\ue0 e la diffusione delle tecnologie biometriche negli scenari basati su AmI. Il primo modo consiste nel progettare tecnologie biometriche innovative che siano in grado di funzionare in modo robusto con campioni acquisiti in condizioni non ideali e in presenza di rumore. Il secondo modo consiste nel progettare approcci biometrici multimodali innovativi, in grado di sfruttare a proprio vantaggi tutti i sensori posizionati in un ambiente generico, al fine di ottenere un\u2019elevata accuratezza del riconoscimento ed effettuare autenticazioni continue o periodiche in modo non intrusivo. Il primo obiettivo di questa tesi \ue8 la progettazione di sistemi biometrici innovativi e scarsamente vincolati in grado di migliorare, rispetto allo stato dell\u2019arte attuale, la qualit\ue0 delle tecniche di interazione uomo-macchine in diversi scenari applicativi basati su AmI. Il secondo obiettivo riguarda la progettazione di approcci innovativi per migliorare l\u2019applicabilit\ue0 e l\u2019integrazione di tecnologie biometriche eterogenee negli scenari che utilizzano AmI. In particolare, questa tesi considera le tecnologie biometriche basate su impronte digitali, volto, voce e sistemi multimodali. Questa tesi presenta le seguenti ricerche innovative: \u2022 un metodo per il riconoscimento del parlatore tramite la voce in applicazioni che usano AmI; \u2022 un metodo per la stima dell\u2019et\ue0 dell\u2019individuo da campioni acquisiti in condizioni non-ideali nell\u2019ambito di scenari basati su AmI; \u2022 un metodo per accrescere l\u2019accuratezza del riconoscimento biometrico in modo protettivo della privacy e basato sulla normalizzazione degli score biometrici tramite l\u2019analisi di gruppi di campioni simili tra loro; \u2022 un approccio per la fusione biometrica multimodale indipendente dalla tecnologia utilizzata, in grado di combinare tratti biometrici eterogenei in scenari basati su AmI; \u2022 un approccio per l\u2019autenticazione continua multimodale in applicazioni che usano AmI. Le tecnologie biometriche innovative progettate e descritte in questa tesi sono state validate utilizzando diversi dataset biometrici (sia pubblici che acquisiti in laboratorio), i quali simulano le condizioni che si possono verificare in applicazioni di AmI. I risultati ottenuti hanno dimostrato la realizzabilit\ue0 degli approcci studiati e hanno mostrato che i metodi progettati aumentano l\u2019accuratezza, l\u2019applicabilit\ue0 e l\u2019usabilit\ue0 delle tecnologie biometriche rispetto allo stato dell\u2019arte negli scenari basati su AmI.Ambient Intelligence (AmI) refers to an environment capable of recognizing and responding to the presence of different individuals in a seamless, unobtrusive and often invisible way. In this environment, people are surrounded by intelligent intuitive interfaces that are embedded in all kinds of objects. The goals of AmI are to provide greater user-friendliness, more efficient services support, user-empowerment, and support for human interactions. Examples of AmI scenarios are smart cities, smart homes, smart offices, and smart hospitals. In AmI, biometric technologies represent enabling technologies to design personalized services for individuals or groups of people. Biometrics is the science of establishing the identity of an individual or a class of people based on the physical, or behavioral attributes of the person. Common applications include: security checks, border controls, access control to physical places, and authentication to electronic devices. In AmI, biometric technologies should work in uncontrolled and less-constrained conditions with respect to traditional biometric technologies. Furthermore, in many application scenarios, it could be required to adopt covert and non-cooperative technologies. In these non-ideal conditions, the biometric samples frequently present poor quality, and state-of-the-art biometric technologies can obtain unsatisfactory performance. There are two possible ways to improve the applicability and diffusion of biometric technologies in AmI. The first one consists in designing novel biometric technologies robust to samples acquire in noisy and non-ideal conditions. The second one consists in designing novel multimodal biometric approaches that are able to take advantage from all the sensors placed in a generic environment in order to achieve high recognition accuracy and to permit to perform continuous or periodic authentications in an unobtrusive manner. The first goal of this thesis is to design innovative less-constrained biometric systems, which are able to improve the quality of the human-machine interaction in different AmI environments with respect to the state-of-the-art technologies. The second goal is to design novel approaches to improve the applicability and integration of heterogeneous biometric systems in AmI. In particular, the thesis considers technologies based on fingerprint, face, voice, and multimodal biometrics. This thesis presents the following innovative research studies: \u2022 a method for text-independent speaker identification in AmI applications; \u2022 a method for age estimation from non-ideal samples acquired in AmI scenarios; \u2022 a privacy-compliant cohort normalization technique to increase the accuracy of already deployed biometric systems; \u2022 a technology-independent multimodal fusion approach to combine heterogeneous traits in AmI scenarios; \u2022 a multimodal continuous authentication approach for AmI applications. The designed novel biometric technologies have been tested on different biometric datasets (both public and collected in our laboratory) simulating the acquisitions performed in AmI applications. Results proved the feasibility of the studied approaches and shown that the studied methods effectively increased the accuracy, applicability, and usability of biometric technologies in AmI with respect to the state-of-the-art

The Application of the Human-Biometric Sensor Interaction Method to Automated Border Control Systems

Biometrics components are used in many different systems and technologies to verify that the user is whom they say they are. In Automated Border Control systems, biometrics components used in conjunction with a traveller's documents to make sure the user is whom they say they are so that they can cross into a countries borders. The systems are expected to verify the identity with a higher degree than officers who manually check travellers. Each year the number of travellers crossing through a country borders increases and so systems are expected to handle bigger demands; through improving the user experience to ensuring accuracy and performance standards increase. While the system does bring its benefits through increased speed and higher security, there are drawbacks. One of the main issues with the systems is a lack of standardisation across implementations. Passing through an automated process at Heathrow may be different to Hong Kong. The infrastructure, information, environment and guidance given during the transaction will all greatly differ for the user. Furthermore, the individual components and subsequent processing will be evaluated using a different methodology too. This thesis reports on the contrasts between implementations, looking at solutions which utilise different biometric modalities and travel documents. Several models are devised to establish a process map which can be applied to all systems. Investigating further, a framework is described for a novel assessment method to evaluate the performance of a system. An RGB-D sensor is implemented, to track and locate the user within an interactive environment. By doing so, the user's interaction is assessed in real-time. Studies then report on the effectiveness of the solution within a replicated border control scenario. Several relationships are studied to improve the technologies used within the scenario. Successful implementation of the automated assessment method may improve the user's experience with systems, improving information and guidance, increasing the likelihood of successful interaction while maintaining a high level of security and quicker processing times