When we interact with others we are used to identifying them by their physical appearance their voice or other sensory data. When we need proof of identity beyond physical appearance we obtain a signature or we look at a photo identification card. In cyberspace, where people need to interact with digital systems or with one another remotely, we do not have these tried and true means of identification available.
In almost all cases we cannot see, hear or obtain a signature from the person with whom we are interacting. Biometrics, the measurement of unique physical characteristics, is an ideal solution to the problem of identification. Biometrics makes it possible to identify ourselves to digital systems and through these systems identify ourselves to others in cyberspace. With biometrics we create a digital personal that make our transactions and interactions in cyberspace convenient and secure. Of all the biometrics available including face, ins and retina scanning voice identification and others, the fingerprint is one of the most convenient and foolproof.
Fingerprints have been used for centuries for identification and we have a substantial body of real world data upon which to base our claim of the uniqueness of fingerprints. It is scanning for instance is an entirely new science for which there is little or no real world data.
The mostly used technology in electronic verification and identification is the use of Personal Identification Number (PIN). This technique is almost illicit in this modern day of hacking and cracking and is associated with the following problems; complexities, redundancy, slow accessing speed, insecurity and resource consuming.
It is even better stating the problem from the point of application of PIN authentication system, many organizations did not even posses the simplex PIN authentication system as part of their security measures. This is the causes of crime and fake identity presentation in many cases; could be among staff in an organization, by intruders, among fake students in an institution, etc.
The aim of this project is to implement a fingerprint biometric system that verifies and identifies a user to the security system based on an individual enrollment in the database. The objectives of this project are:
Biometrics method of identification is preferred over traditional methods involving passwords and PIN numbers for its accuracy and case sensitiveness. A biometric system is essentially a pattern recognition system which makes a personal identification by determining the authenticity of a specific physiological or behavioral characteristic possessed by the user. An important issue in designing a practical system is to determine how an individual is identified. Every medium of authentication has its own advantages and shortcomings. With the increased use of computers as vehicles of information technology, it is necessary to restrict unauthorized access to or fraudulent use of sensitive/personal data. Biometric techniques being potentially able to augment this restriction are enjoying a renewed interest.
The area of interest of this study will focus on fingerprint biometrics. The scope of this project will also be a database driven application where employee’s information will be protected by the front-end biometrics application. The application will be able to add new user, edit user’s information, update employee’s record and also verify each fingerprints.
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Integrity: To verify that a message or document is genuine and has not been manipulated or changed since its original creation and singing.
Authentication: To verify the identity of an individual or organisation sending the message.
Non-Repudiation: To ensure that the originator of the message or transaction cannot subsequently disown it.
Enrollment: The initial process of collecting biometric data from a user and then storing it in a template for later comparison.
Template: A mathematical representation of biometric data. A template can vary in size from 96bytes for hand geometry to several thousand bytes for facial recognition.
Identification: The process by which the biometric system identifies a person by performing a one-to-many search against the entire enrolled population.
Verification: Authentication process by which the biometric system matches as captured biometric against the person’s stored template.
False-Acceptance Rate (FAR): The percentage of incorrectly matched to a valid user’s biometric.
False-Rejection Rate (FRR): The percentage of inconsistently rejected valid users.
This report comprises five chapters. The first chapter serves as introduction to the project and it discusses the statement of the problem, aim and objectives of the project, significance of the study, scope and limitation, definition of terms and organisation of the report are given.
Chapter two presents a review of related literatures on the subject matters with discussions of related topical issues on biometrics, which include definition of some technical terms and the computerization current state of the art.
Chapter three consists of the description of the current procedure, problem of the existing system.
Chapter four deals with the design, implementation and documentation of system.
Chapter five finally deals with the summary, recommendation and conclusion.