A 3-layer coding scheme for biometry template protection based on spectral minutiae

Spectral Minutiae (SM) representation enables the combination of minutiae-based fingerprint recognition systems with template protection schemes based on fuzzy commitment, but it requires error-correcting codes that can handle high bit error rates (i.e. above 40%). In this paper, we propose a 3-Layer coding scheme based on erasure codes for the SM-based biometric recognition system. Our approach is inspired by the fact that the Packet Error Rate (PER) is proportional to the Bit Error Rate (BER). Each packet is encoded by an Error Detection Code (EDC) and an Error Correction Code (ECC). The packet can only survive if it successfully passes the ECC and EDC decoder. With the erasure code, the system can reconstruct the secret key by only using the survived packets. By applying SM to the FVC2000-DB2 fingerprint database, the unprotected system achieves an EER of around 6% while our proposed coding scheme reaches an EER of approximately 6.5% with a 1032-bit secret key.