A Survey on Modality Characteristics, Performance Evaluation Metrics, and Security for Traditional and Wearable Biometric Systems

Biometric research is directed increasingly towards Wearable Biometric Systems (WBS) for user authentication and identification. However, prior to engaging in WBS research, how their operational dynamics and design considerations differ from those of Traditional Biometric Systems (TBS) must be understood. While the current literature is cognizant of those differences, there is no effective work that summarizes the factors where TBS and WBS differ, namely, their modality characteristics, performance, security and privacy. To bridge the gap, this paper accordingly reviews and compares the key characteristics of modalities, contrasts the metrics used to evaluate system performance, and highlights the divergence in critical vulnerabilities, attacks and defenses for TBS and WBS. It further discusses how these factors affect the design considerations for WBS, the open challenges and future directions of research in these areas. In doing so, the paper provides a big-picture overview of the important avenues of challenges and potential solutions that researchers entering the field should be aware of. Hence, this survey aims to be a starting point for researchers in comprehending the fundamental differences between TBS and WBS before understanding the core challenges associated with WBS and its design

Biometrics

Biometrics-Unique and Diverse Applications in Nature, Science, and Technology provides a unique sampling of the diverse ways in which biometrics is integrated into our lives and our technology. From time immemorial, we as humans have been intrigued by, perplexed by, and entertained by observing and analyzing ourselves and the natural world around us. Science and technology have evolved to a point where we can empirically record a measure of a biological or behavioral feature and use it for recognizing patterns, trends, and or discrete phenomena, such as individuals' and this is what biometrics is all about. Understanding some of the ways in which we use biometrics and for what specific purposes is what this book is all about

Intelligent interface agents for biometric applications

This thesis investigates the benefits of applying the intelligent agent paradigm to biometric identity verification systems. Multimodal biometric systems, despite their additional complexity, hold the promise of providing a higher degree of accuracy and robustness. Multimodal biometric systems are examined in this work leading to the design and implementation of a novel distributed multi-modal identity verification system based on an intelligent agent framework. User interface design issues are also important in the domain of biometric systems and present an exceptional opportunity for employing adaptive interface agents. Through the use of such interface agents, system performance may be improved, leading to an increase in recognition rates over a non-adaptive system while producing a more robust and agreeable user experience. The investigation of such adaptive systems has been a focus of the work reported in this thesis. The research presented in this thesis is divided into two main parts. Firstly, the design, development and testing of a novel distributed multi-modal authentication system employing intelligent agents is presented. The second part details design and implementation of an adaptive interface layer based on interface agent technology and demonstrates its integration with a commercial fingerprint recognition system. The performance of these systems is then evaluated using databases of biometric samples gathered during the research. The results obtained from the experimental evaluation of the multi-modal system demonstrated a clear improvement in the accuracy of the system compared to a unimodal biometric approach. The adoption of the intelligent agent architecture at the interface level resulted in a system where false reject rates were reduced when compared to a system that did not employ an intelligent interface. The results obtained from both systems clearly express the benefits of combining an intelligent agent framework with a biometric system to provide a more robust and flexible application

A Multimodal Technique for an Embedded Fingerprint Recognizer in Mobile Payment Systems

The development and the diffusion of distributed systems, directly connected to recent communication technologies, move people towards the era of mobile and ubiquitous systems. Distributed systems make merchant-customer relationships closer and more flexible, using reliable e-commerce technologies. These systems and environments need many distributed access points, for the creation and management of secure identities and for the secure recognition of users. Traditionally, these access points can be made possible by a software system with a main central server. This work proposes the study and implementation of a multimodal technique, based on biometric information, for identity management and personal ubiquitous authentication. The multimodal technique uses both fingerprint micro features (minutiae) and fingerprint macro features (singularity points) for robust user authentication. To strengthen the security level of electronic payment systems, an embedded hardware prototype has been also created: acting as self-contained sensors, it performs the entire authentication process on the same device, so that all critical information (e.g. biometric data, account transactions and cryptographic keys), are managed and stored inside the sensor, without any data transmission. The sensor has been prototyped using the Celoxica RC203E board, achieving fast execution time, low working frequency, and good recognition performance

Affective feedback: an investigation into the role of emotions in the information seeking process

User feedback is considered to be a critical element in the information seeking process, especially in relation to relevance assessment. Current feedback techniques determine content relevance with respect to the cognitive and situational levels of interaction that occurs between the user and the retrieval system. However, apart from real-life problems and information objects, users interact with intentions, motivations and feelings, which can be seen as critical aspects of cognition and decision-making. The study presented in this paper serves as a starting point to the exploration of the role of emotions in the information seeking process. Results show that the latter not only interweave with different physiological, psychological and cognitive processes, but also form distinctive patterns, according to specific task, and according to specific user

Future prospects for personal security in travel by public transport

This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant number EP/I037032/1]. No other funding support from any other bodies was provided.Peer reviewedPublisher PD