Enhanced fingerprint shell

Abstract

Most of the fingerprint based biometric systems directly store fingerprint information in the form of minutiae template. A fingerprint is permanently associated with a user and cannot be changed unlike passwords in case of token-based systems. If the fingerprint of a user is compromised, it is lost forever. Hence ensuring security of fingerprint data is essential. In this paper, a key based technique, called Enhanced fingerprint Shell, has been presented for securing fingerprint template. This technique is an enhanced version of the key based technique named as Fingerprint Shell proposed by Moujahdi et al. The proposed technique transforms a fingerprint template by using a pair of keys defined uniquely for every individual. If the transformed template is compromised, user has an option to generate a new template using a new pair of keys. The proposed technique has been evaluated on IIT Kanpur fingerprint database. Experimental results have been found encouraging and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique. © 2015 IEEE.