Personalized biometric key using fingerprint biometrics

Purpose - This paper aims to address some of the practical and security problems when using fingerhash to secure biometric key for protecting digital contents. Design/methodology/approach - Study the two existing directions of biometric-based key generation approach based on the usability, security and accuracy aspects. Discuss the requisite unresolved issues related to this approach. Findings - The proposed Fingerhashing approach transforms fingerprint into a binary discretized representation called Fingerhash. The Reed Solomon error correction method is used to stabilize the fluctuation in Fingerhash. The stabilized Fingerhash is then XORed with a biometric key. The key can only be released upon the XOR process with another Fingerhash derived from an authentic fingerprint. The proposed method could regenerate an error-free biometric key based on an authentic fingerprint with up to 99.83 percent success rate, leading to promising result of FAR = 0 percent and FRR = 0.17 percent. Besides, the proposed method can produce biometric keys (1,150 bit length) which are longer in size than the other prevailing biometric key generation schemes to offer higher security protection to safeguard digital contents. Originality/value - Outlines a novel solution to address the issues of usability, security and accuracy of biometric based key generation scheme.