Secure personal identification instrument and method for creating same

• US 6,292,092 B1
• Filed: 05/07/1996
• Issued: 09/18/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 02/19/1993
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Her Majesty The Queen In Right of Canada As Represented By The Minister of National Defence
• Original Assignee: Her Majesty The Queen In Right of Canada As Represented By The Minister of National Defence
• Inventors: Chow, Sherman M., Serinken, Nur M., Shlien, Seymour
• Primary Examiner(s): Zimmerman, Brian
• Application Number:
  US08/643,961
• Time in Patent Office: 1,960 Days
• Field of Search: 340/825.31, 340/825.34, 380/23, 382/2, 382/11, 235/456, 235/380
• US Class Current: 340/5.6
• CPC Class Codes: B42D 25/23 Identity cards
• CPC Class Codes: B42D 25/309 Photographs
• CPC Class Codes: B42D 25/318 Signatures
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/06037 multi-dimensional coding
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/14 the marking being sensed by radiation
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 9/257 electronically G07C9/26 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/08 by coded identity card or credit card or other personal identification means without personal verification means G07F7/02
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/125 Offline card verification

Abstract

A personal identification instrument is comprised of a substrate, and carried on the substrate: a photograph and/or a personal signature, personal information relating to the legitimate holder of the instrument, and an encrypted machine readable security code carried by the instrument, the code being comprised of a combination of digitized personal information and a digitized descriptor of the photograph and/or personal signature.

Claims

1. A method of creating a personal identification instrument on which personal data and at least one of a picture and signature of a legitimate holder are retained, comprising the steps of:

(a) acquiring a first digital representation of at least one of a picture and signature of said legitimate holder of said instrument,

(b) extracting first feature data from said digital representation,

(c) combining said feature data with said personal data into a single data sequence,

(d) generating a security code by encrypting said single data sequence using a private secret key of a kind for which decrypting using a public key would allow authentication of the instrument, and

(e) affixing the personal data, and said at least one of a picture and a signature of a legitimate holder and said encrypted security code to the instrument to provide a substantially forgery-proof instrument.

2. A method as defined in claim 1, in which the security code is fixed to the instrument in at least one of a machine readable bar code, a machine readable magnetic stripe, a machine readable integrated circuit and an OCR code.

3. A method as defined in claim 1 in which said first feature data is a code resulting from the low resolution luminance component of said picture reduced to a small number of gray levels.

4. A method as defined in claim 1, in which said feature data is a low resolution luminance component of a picture reduced to a small number of grey levels.

5. A method as defined in claim 4, in which the number of grey levels is three.

6. A method as defined in claim 4 in which the feature data is comprised of the binary coded weighted averages of each of the grey levels for each of i-th and j-th coordinates of the picture, more weight being given to pixels at the center of the picture.

7. A method as defined in claim 1 in which said security code is comprised additionally of error correction bits.

8. A method of authenticating a personal identification instrument comprising a substrate, and carried on the substrate:

a photograph and a personal signature, readable personal information relating to the legitimate holder of the instrument, and a private secret key encrypted machine readable security code, the private secret key being of a kind for which decrypting using a public key would allow authentication of the instrument, said code being comprised of a combination of a digitized form of said personal information and a digitized descriptor of a first feature data of said photograph, comprising;

i reading said personal data from the personal identification instrument,

ii acquiring a second digital representation of the photograph from said instrument,

iii extracting second feature data from the digitized representation corresponding to said first feature data of said photograph,

iv processing the second feature data to obtain image descriptors,

v reading and decrypting the security code using a public decryption key,

vi separating personal data from feature data in the encrypted security code,

vii comparing the personal data obtained in step vi with the personal data read in step i,

viii in the event there is a discrepancy, between the personal data from step vi compared to step i, declaring the instrument as a fake,

ix in the event the instrument is not declared as a fake in step viii, obtaining decrypted image descriptors from the decrypted security code and comparing decrypted feature data descriptors obtained in step iv with the decrypted image descriptors,

x declaring the instrument as a fake in the event the compared descriptors in step ix and step iv are dissimilar to a predetermined degree.

9. A method as defined in claim 8 in which said machine readable security code is comprised of a compressed digitized representation which has been encrypted.