Life-related signal detected from a finger-tip can be used to prevent frauds by finger-replicas. A finger deformation induces blood movement and the light scattered inside the finger carries this life-related information. We propose to look at the changes in color and luminance extracted from the central part of the fingerprint images. In experiments, we examined input actions taken by more than 30 participants as well as six replicas made of various materials. For the live fingers, chromaticity coordinates x and luminance Y showed a relatively large hysteresis as a function of the area of the fingerprint images. This hysteresis was smaller in case of the replicas. Based on this fact, we were able to define indices and criteria for life recognition so that all the replicas were rejected while the most live fingers were accepted. However, the recognition was not perfect due to the small hysteresis shown by some replicas. Improvements in the input hardware and the algorithms for life-related information extraction need to be addressed in future.

Date Published: 9 February 2006
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6075, Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques VI, 60750Z (9 February 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.641397

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6075:
Optical Security and Counterfeit Deterrence Techniques VI
Rudolf L. van Renesse, Editor(s)