On the Use of Mobile Phones and Biometrics for Accessing Restricted Web Services

In this study, an application that allows a mobile phone to be used as a biometric-capture device is shown. The main contribution of our proposal is that this capture, and later recognition, can be performed during a standard web session, using the same architecture that is used in a personal computer (PC), thus allowing a multiplatform (PC, personal digital assistant (PDA), mobile phone, etc.) biometric web access. The review, which is from both an academic and commercial point of view, of the biometry and mobile device state of the art shows that in other related works, the biometric capture and recognition is either performed locally in the mobile or remotely but using special communication protocols and/or connection ports with the server. The second main contribution of this study is an in-depth analysis of the present mobile web-browser limitations; thus, it is concluded that, in general, it is impossible to use the same technologies that can be used to capture biometrics in PC platforms (i.e., Applet Java, ActiveX Control, JavaScript, or Flash); therefore, new solutions, as shown here, are needed.