Simulation and experimental studies on fuzzy vault fingerprint cryptography

Abstract

Fuzzy vault cryptography relies on the error-correcting capabilities of the underlying error-correction code (typically, Reed-Solomon). Therefore, any application of such a system can tolerate only a limited number of errors associated with the true data points. For fingerprint vault systems, poor alignment can cause valid extracted minutiae (true data points) to be regarded as errors because they are outside the matching threshold. Attempting to overcome this problem by increasing the matching threshold may result in additional matching of false (chaff) points in the vault, depending on the density of points in the vault. A simulation study was conducted in order to determine acceptable parameters and thresholds for a fingerprint vault cryptographic system to function successfully. Simulation results show that the variation of repeatable minutiae points must be below the matching threshold of the system for acceptable performance and therefore improving the quality of fingerprint alignment is critical to a successful implementation of the method. An experimental study was also conducted to confirm that if fingerprint alignment is not carefully considered, the fuzzy vault system for fingerprints is prone to failure.