Security: National Institute of Standards and Technology Shows On-Card Fingerprint Match Is Secure, Speedy; getting better, but ...

National Institute of Standards and Technology Shows On-Card Fingerprint Match Is Secure, Speedy
NIST Tech Beat (04/01/08) Brown, Evelyn

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology say a new fingerprint identification technology for use in personal identification verification (PIV) cards is both fast and secure. As part of the authentication process for the technology, the cardholder enters a personal identification number to authorize the reading of fingerprint data from the card, and a card reader matches the stored data against the newly scanned image of the cardholder's fingerprints. In one model, biometric data on the card would travel across a secure wireless interface, which would eliminate the need to insert the card into a reader. In a second model, biometric data from the fingerprint scanner would be sent to the PIV smart card for matching by a processor chip embedded in the card, and the stored data would never leave the card. "If your card is lost and then found in the street, your fingerprint template cannot be copied," says computer scientist Patrick Grother. Ten cards with a standard 128-byte-long key and seven cards that use a more secure 256-byte key passed the security and timing test using wireless, but only one of three teams met NIST's criteria for accuracy. A new round of tests on the technology, which offers an improvement in protection against identity theft, will begin shortly.
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