ABSTRACT

Identity theft can be effectively solved by the integration of biometrics and cryptography. Lately, researchers and experimenters have been greatly attracted by the improved performance (protection) of cryptographic keys produced from biometrics. However, there exists an eternal association between the biometric and the user, where in, alteration is not viable. Hence, a compromise of the biometric feature will consequently lead to a perpetual and possible loss of biometric for all the applications that employ it. The generation of replaceable biometric templates through cancelable biometrics has emerged as a possible solution to the aforesaid problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient approach for cryptographic key generation from fingerprint biometrics using cancelable templates. The proposed approach is composed of three phases namely: 1) Extraction of minutiae points from the fingerprint image, 2) Generation of cancelable biometric templates with added security and 3) Cryptographic key generation from the Secured cancelable template. The resultant cryptographic key thus generated is irrevocable and unique to a particular cancelable template, making the generation of new cancelable templates and cryptographic keys feasible. The experimental results portray the effectiveness of the cancelable template and the cryptographic key generated.