Eye scans unlock the future

Biometrics is being used to increase computer security

Kevin Anderson BBC News Online in Washington

Password cracking programs can break a lot of easily guessed phrases in less than a minute.

And heightened security of airports, borders and sensitive facilities is the focus of a world newly awakened to the threat of global terrorism.

Countries and companies want security that is harder to fool than systems that rely on passwords and Personal Identification Numbers (Pin).

Enter biometrics. The highly hyped technology relies on physical unique characteristics such as fingerprints, facial patterns or the pattern of the iris in the eye to make sure users are who they say they are.

Rush of interest

"September 11 brought the biometric marketplace and their technologies to the forefront," said Richard Ouaknine, with the International Biometric Group.

"Everyone realised globally that there is a greater need for improved security and additional methods of security aside from traditional passwords, tokens and so forth," he added.

Biometrics is an industry in its infancy, worth between $240m to $400m, according to Brian Ruttenbur, senior vice president and equity research analyst of Morgan Keegan & Company.

Following the attacks of 11 September, stocks in biometrics companies rose 130%, he said.

Both the US and UK Governments are exploring biometrics as a way to increase security of computer systems, as well as at airports, military facilities and government offices.

The Home Office in the UK is looking into systems that speed passage through immigration.

Biometric locks even guard the offices of US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Eye IDs

The JetStream system was part of a test at Heathrow

The public will soon be seeing biometrics systems at airports and in enhanced travel documents that the US Government is requiring by 2004.

EyeTicket's JetStream system, which uses the pattern of the iris in the eye for identification, was part of a test programme at London's Heathrow Airport.

The hope is that the system will speed passage of overseas visitors through immigration, cutting the time for processing from an average of 10 minutes to 10 seconds.

Biometrics company Saflink has a fingerprint recognition system coupled with a proximity sensor.

Computer users sign-in to their computers by scanning their fingers. Once they step away from their terminal, the system automatically locks the computer down.

Competition

Right now, it is a battle not only between rival companies but also rival technologies.

Fingerprint, facial recognition and fingerprint scanning are just a few technologies vying for government funding.

Fingerprinting associated with criminal cases

Iris scanning advocates say that their system is difficult to trick because of the complexity of the iris.

They say that the system can even detect false iris patterns printed on contact lenses because of visual artefacts left by the inkjet technology used to print such lenses.

But privacy advocates question the accuracy of various biometric technologies and have voiced concerns about the how information linked to biometric identifiers will be used.

Some people have been resistant to fingerprint scanning as it is associated with criminal activity.

Facial scanning got a black eye when it was used without alerting game goers at the Superbowl, the championship game of the National Football League in the US.

But biometrics boosters say that Americans are now willing to trade some of their privacy for increased security.

Biometrics

Capturing, managing and moving biometric data for positive, rapid ID and tracking of persons of interest.

Biometrics are physical or behavioral characteristics unique to an individual, such as a finger or palm print, iris pattern or face image. Because each individual has unique biometric data, solutions based on biometrics offer a better and more accurate means of ensuring program integrity. By matching patterns of individuals against databases of records, our customers are better able to protect and secure citizens from crime and theft made possible by fraudulent identities.

Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Afghanistan

Photo by Lance Cpl. Monty Burton

Sgt. Nick Bender conducts an iris scan of an Afghan village elder’s eye during a cordon and search mission Feb. 9, in Farah province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The Marines use the Biometric Automated Toolset to identify Afghans by using fingerprints and iris scans. Bender is the Company-Level Intelligence Cell chief with Company I, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment (Reinforced), the ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Afghanistan. The SPMAGTF-A mission is to conduct counterinsurgency operations, with a focus on training and mentoring the Afghan national police.

Mobile Identification for Military Applications

Establish identity dominance in the field quickly and accurately.

The most advanced and complete mobile identification solutions based on field-proven, widely-deployed components that enable end users to quickly and accurately identify subjects in the field.

In the global war on terror, identity dominance is critical especially in the field with terrorists or insurgents typically hiding among the civilian population.

Biometrics and identity management are key enablers in the global war on terror able to save lives and essential to managing information-related risks.

Solutions for remote identification support multiple biometrics, enabling officers to verify an identity via a suspect’s finger, face or iris pattern.

Mobile ID solutions for military applications help:

• Identify subjects who are without any identification documents or with potentially false identification documents
• Verify if the subject is the legitimate owner of the document presented
• Authenticate the legitimacy of the document provided
• Enroll subject’s biometric and demographic information for future identification or verification

Biometric Facial Recognition

The image may not always be verified or identified in facial recognition alone. Identix® has created a new product to help with precision. The development of FaceIt®Argus uses skin biometrics, the uniqueness of skin texture, to yield even more accurate results.

The surface texture analysis (STA) algorithm operates on the top percentage of results as determined by the local feature analysis.
STA creates a skinprint and performs either a 1:1 or 1:N match depending on whether you're looking for verification or identification.

The process, called Surface Texture Analysis, works much the same way facial recognition does. A picture is taken of a patch of skin, called a skinprint. That patch is then broken up into smaller blocks. Using algorithms to turn the patch into a mathematical, measurable space, the system will then distinguish any lines, pores and the actual skin texture. It can identify differences between identical twins, which is not yet possible using facial recognition software alone. According to Identix, by combining facial recognition with surface texture analysis, accurate identification can increase by 20 to 25 percent.

FaceIt currently uses three different templates to confirm or identify the subject: vector, local feature analysis and surface texture analysis.

• The vector template is very small and is used for rapid searching over the entire database primarily for one-to-many searching.
• The local feature analysis (LFA) template performs a secondary search of ordered matches following the vector template.
• The surface texture analysis (STA) is the largest of the three. It performs a final pass after the LFA template search, relying on the skin features in the image, which contains the most detailed information.

By combining all three templates, FaceIt® has an advantage over other systems. It is relatively insensitive to changes in expression, including blinking, frowning or smiling and has the ability to compensate for mustache or beard growth and the appearance of eyeglasses. The system is also uniform with respect to race and gender.

Photo © Identix Inc.

Poor lighting can make it more difficult for facial recognition software to verify or identify someone.

However, it is not a perfect system. There are some factors that could get in the way of recognition, including:

• Significant glare on eyeglasses or wearing sunglasses
• Long hair obscuring the central part of the face
• Poor lighting that would cause the face to be over- or under-exposed
• Lack of resolution (image was taken too far away)

Identix isn't the only company with facial recognition systems available. While most work the same way FaceIt does, there are some variations. For example, a company called Animetrix, Inc. has a product called FACEngine ID® SetLight that can correct lighting conditions that cannot normally be used, reducing the risk of false matches. Sensible Vision, Inc. has a product that can secure a computer using facial recognition. The computer will only power on and stay accessible as long as the correct user is in front of the screen. Once the user moves out of the line of sight, the computer is automatically secured from other users.

Due to these strides in technology, facial and skin recognition systems are more widely used than just a few years ago. In the next section, we'll look at where and how they are being used and what's in store for the future.

How Facial Recognition Systems Work

How Facial Recognition Systems Work

Identix®, a company based in Minnesota, is one of many developers of facial recognition technology. Its software, FaceIt®, can pick someone's face out of a crowd, extract the face from the rest of the scene and compare it to a database of stored images. In order for this software to work, it has to know how to differentiate between a basic face and the rest of the background. Facial recognition software is based on the ability to recognize a face and then measure the various features of the face.

Every face has numerous, distinguishable landmarks, the different peaks and valleys that make up facial features. FaceIt defines these landmarks as nodal points. Each human face has approximately 80 nodal points. Some of these measured by the software are:

• Distance between the eyes
• Width of the nose
• Depth of the eye sockets
• The shape of the cheekbones
• The length of the jaw line

These nodal points are measured creating a numerical code, called a faceprint, representing the face in the database.

In the past, facial recognition software has relied on a 2D image to compare or identify another 2D image from the database. To be effective and accurate, the image captured needed to be of a face that was looking almost directly at the camera, with little variance of light or facial expression from the image in the database. This created quite a problem.

In most instances the images were not taken in a controlled environment. Even the smallest changes in light or orientation could reduce the effectiveness of the system, so they couldn't be matched to any face in the database, leading to a high rate of failure. In the next section, we will look at ways to correct the problem.

Photo © Identix Inc.

Facial recognition system

A facial recognition system is a computer application for automatically identifying or verifying a person from a digital image or a video frame from a video source. One of the ways to do this is by comparing selected facial features from the image and a facial database. It is typically used in security systems and can be compared to other biometrics such as fingerprint or eye iris recognition systems

Some facial recognition algorithms identify faces by extracting landmarks, or features, from an image of the subject's face. For example, an algorithm may analyze the relative position, size, and/or shape of the eyes, nose, cheekbones, and jaw. These features are then used to search for other images with matching features. Other algorithms normalize a gallery of face images and then compress the face data, only saving the data in the image that is useful for face detection. A probe image is then compared with the face data. One of the earliest, successful systems is based on template matching techniques applied to a set of salient facial features, providing a sort of compressed face representation.

Criticisms

Face recognition is not perfect and struggles to perform under certain conditions. Ralph Gross, a researcher at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, describes one obstacle related to the viewing angle of the face: "Face recognition has been getting pretty good at full frontal faces and 20 degrees off, but as soon as you go towards profile, there've been problems. Critics of the technology complain that the London Borough of Newham scheme has, as of 2004, never recognized a single criminal, despite several criminals in the system's database living in the Borough and the system having been running for several years. "Not once, as far as the police know, has Newham's automatic facial recognition system spotted a live target." This information seems to conflict with claims that the system was credited with a 34% reduction in crime - which better explains why the system was then rolled out to Birmingham also.

Future

A possible future application for facial recognition systems lies in retailing. A retail store (for example, a grocery store) may have cash registers equipped with cameras, the cameras would be aimed at the faces of customers, so pictures of customers could be obtained. The camera would be the primary means of identifying the customer, and if visual identification failed, the customer could complete the purchase by using a PIN (personal identification number). After the cash register had calculated the total sale, the face recognition system would verify the identity of the customer and the total amount of the sale would be deducted from the customer's bank account. Hence, face-based retailing would provide convenience for retail customers, since they could go shopping simply by showing their faces, and there would be no need to bring debit cards, or other financial media. Wide-reaching applications of face-based retailing are possible, including retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, car rental companies, hotels, etc.

Trying to find out "what is RFID?" ePassport

On wenesday we talk about identity ...... and bit about Passport RFID stuff (techongy).... wooo! Well here some info i found out. Inside passport >

What are RFID Chips?
(i know most of us konw what is it and how it works but anyway have a read)

RFID which stands for Radio Frequency Identification chips are small chips with antennas which are capable of holding information. They function similar to a barcode on a package, and therefore must be scanned to obtain information. However, the RFID chips do not need to be close to the scanner. RFID chips with higher frequencies can be read from 20 feet. 20 feet? this is amazing....

Check out the image below...







This what i found out:

• A scanning antenna
• A transceiver with a decorder to interpret data
• A transponder or RFID Chip

Look at this, niccccccccccccce..... passport - inside
I should open my passport, well maybe not.

RFID Passports

RFID tag-toting documents will store all of your personal data, including name, address, nationality, a picture, a digitized fingerprint and just about every other thing crooks would need to take your identity for a joyride. The government is insisting that they've taken the necessary precautions to prevent data "skimming," but that can be a lot trickier than it sounds.

Just ask the Dutch. Ultimately, the technology could go either way, acting as an effective method of cross-checking people across a vast security network as they move from country to country, or evolving into an omnipresent grid of surveillance that will spread viruses and confine us all to our homes lest we feel the wrath of cyber criminals or high-tech fascists. So let us know how it turns out, we'll be in the basement with our RFID-blocking wallet and tin foil hat.

More info >>