System and method for distorting a biometric for transactions with enhanced security and privacy
First Claim
1. A computer system comprising one or more central processing units and one or more memories, the system further comprising:
- one or more sensors that sense one or more characteristics of a user and convert the characteristics into a first digital representation that is stored in one or more of the memories, the first digital representation having one or more subcharacteristics, the subcharacteristics being invariant over time, insensitive to common sensing artifacts, and capable of being repeatably extracted;
a distortion process that selectably distorts the first digital representation into a distorted digital representation by distorting at least one of the subcharacteristics, the distortion process being repeatable and non-invertible; and
a comparison process that compares one or more sets of the distorted subcharacteristics to one or more stored sets of distorted subcharacteristics to determine the identity of the user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
Authentication methods are very important in several applications. Existing methods of authentication based on possessions or knowledge have several problems that can be overcome by using biometrics. Unfortunately biometrics-based authentication is unrevocable today and has many privacy concerns in users'"'"' minds. The proposed technique employs signal scrambling and morphing techniques to intentionally distort the original biometrics signal in a non-invertible fashion. If the security is compromised, the system can cancel a particular distortion and reacquire the signal with a new distortion function. This provides functionality as good as non-biometric authentication methods in terms of their power of revocation.
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Citations
23 Claims
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1. A computer system comprising one or more central processing units and one or more memories, the system further comprising:
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one or more sensors that sense one or more characteristics of a user and convert the characteristics into a first digital representation that is stored in one or more of the memories, the first digital representation having one or more subcharacteristics, the subcharacteristics being invariant over time, insensitive to common sensing artifacts, and capable of being repeatably extracted;
a distortion process that selectably distorts the first digital representation into a distorted digital representation by distorting at least one of the subcharacteristics, the distortion process being repeatable and non-invertible; and
a comparison process that compares one or more sets of the distorted subcharacteristics to one or more stored sets of distorted subcharacteristics to determine the identity of the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A method for generating a biometric comprising the steps of:
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selectably distorting a first digital representation of one or more biometrics into a distorted digital representation by distorting at least one subcharacteristic of the biometric, the distortion process being repeatable and non-invertible; and
comparing one or more sets of the distorted subcharacteristics to one or more stored sets of distorted subcharacteristics, distorted by the distortion process, to determine the identity of a user.
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22. A system for generating a biometric comprising:
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means for selectably distorting a first digital representation of one or more biometrics into a distorted digital representation by distorting at least one subcharacteristic of the biometric, the distortion process being repeatable and non-invertible; and
means for comparing one or more sets of the distorted subcharacteristics to one or more stored sets of distorted subcharacteristics, distorted by the distortion process, to determine the identity of a user.
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23. A computer program product that executes the no following steps:
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selectably distorting a first digital representation of one or more biometrics into a distorted digital representation by distorting at least one subcharacteristic of the biometric, the distortion process being repeatable and non-invertible; and
comparing one or more sets of the distorted subcharacteristics to one or more stored sets of distorted subcharacteristics, distorted by the distortion process, to determine the identity of a user.
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Specification