Biometrics + Cryptography

Keeping your passwords safely in the palm of your hand (electropages)

…[C]ontactless palm vein recognition technology is nothing new and was first demonstrated back in 2002 and is widely used. It works by extracting feature data from biometric data. With previous technologies, confidential data was encrypted with this feature data, but when decrypting, the feature data extracted from biometric data would usually be matched with the encrypted data. This does not present a problem when used in a personal device, such as a laptop or smartphone, but when used via an open network such as in the cloud, a more secure decryption technology is necessary to prevent leaks of biometric data.

The article discusses encryption within biometric templates using Fujitsu’s palm vein technology, but the idea would seem to be applicable across biometric modalities.

Fujitsu: Iris biometrics for mobile devices

Iris Scanner Unlocks Smartphones Using Infrared LEDs (Electronic Design)

The growing number of smartphone thefts, both in the United States and abroad, has prompted manufacturers to incorporate more resilient security methods into their designs. Fujitsu Ltd., for instance, recently unveiled the Arrows NX F-04G smartphone, which uses infrared light-emitting diodes (IREDs) to support iris scanning authentication.

A suitable illumination source had been a major hurdle for iris biometrics on mobile devices. Fujitsu demonstrated a prototype mobile device using iris technology in March, 2015.

Fujitsu and NTT DoCoMo team up for mobile iris biometrics

NTT DoCoMo launches smartphone with iris unlock feature (PC World)

The Fujitsu prototype incorporated a high-speed, high-accuracy iris recognition algorithm developed by California-based Delta ID. Fujitsu said the error rate for the prototype is about one in 100,000.

Available in green, black and white, the Arrows NX F-04G is slated to be released at the end of this month in Japan for around ¥55,000 (US$460). There are no plans to sell it outside Japan.

I somehow missed the first mention of this collaboration in early March.