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TRANSCRIPT
EAB Newsletter, edition July 2014
EAB Newsletter
Edition July 2014
Editors: Christian Rathgeb, Max Snijder
Contact: [email protected]
Production:
This newsletter is issued by the European Association for Biometrics (EAB). Its content is contributed by the
members of the EAB. If you feel an important news from your biometric sector or from your Region missing –
do not hesitate to submit a news item to the secretariat before the next newsletter is issued (October 2014).
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CONTENT
1. News from the EAB ..................................................................................................... 3
EAB is growing and welcomes 140th
Member! ................................................................................................ 3
EAB Biometrics in Banking 2014: Reality Check identifies many successful Solutions ..................................... 3
EAB organizes European Research Conference on September 8-9, 2014 ........................................................ 4
EAB on the Move ............................................................................................................................................ 5
2. EU/EC/EP .................................................................................................................... 6
The Swiss Center for Biometrics Research and Test ing is born! ....................................................................... 6
Italian Data Protect ion Authority establishes new Rules to simplify the Adopt ion of Biometric Solut ions ...... 7
3. Outside Europe ........................................................................................................... 8
American Civil Libert ies Union wants Legislat ion to enforce Facial Recognit ion Privacy Measures ................. 8
Congressional Committee adopts Amendment to remove NSA from Crypto Standards Process ..................... 8
Biometric-based, seamless Airport processing to be trialled at Aruba Airport ................................................. 9
4. Industry ..................................................................................................................... 10
Never forgett ing a Face - has Face Recognit ion been taken too far? ............................................................. 10
Westpac tests Fingerprint Access to Mobile Banking .................................................................................... 10
MTRIX appointed by Lumidigm as an Authorized Distributor in Europe......................................................... 11
5. Events ....................................................................................................................... 12
European Biometrics Research and Industry Awards 2014: Presentation of finalists on September 10th ...... 12
EAB Research Projects Conference (EAB-RPC) 2014, Darmstadt 8-9 September 2014 ................................. 12
International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group, Darmstadt 10-12, September 2014 ........ 13
ID World International Congress, Frankfurt, Germany 18-20 November 2014 .............................................. 14
International Joint Conference on Biometrics - IJCB'14, Clearwater Beach, USA 29 September – 2 October . 14
International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition - FG'15, Ljubljana, Slovenia 4-8 May
2015 ............................................................................................................................................................. 14
International Conference on Biometrics - ICB'15, Phuket, Thailand 20-24 May 2015 ......................................15
6. Reports .....................................................................................................................16
The 2nd International Workshop on Biometrics and Forensics (IWBF 2014) – March 27-28, 2014 - Valetta .... 16
Norwegian Biometrics Forum Meeting, May 9th, 2014 .................................................................................. 17
CEN TC224 Working Group 18 "Interoperability of biometric recorded data" Meeting – May 15-16, 2014 -
Paris ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
EAB Seminar Biometrics in Banking - Reality Check 2014 – May 21, 2014 - Berlin ......................................... 18
Panel Discussion at EAB Seminar Biometrics in Banking - Reality Check 2014 – May 21, 2014 - Berlin .......... 21
BiForD – Special Session on Biometrics & Forensics & De-identification and Privacy Protection (BiForD 2014)
– May 29, 2014 - Opatija ............................................................................................................................... 23
Special Session on Robustness and Security in Biometrics at Information Hiding and Multimedia Security
(IH&MMSec 2014) – June 13, 2014 - Salzburg ............................................................................................... 24
7. Impressum................................................................................................................. 25
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1. News from the EAB
EAB is growing and welcomes 140th Member!
The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) was not even three years ago and is strongly
growing. We do have now over 140 members and thus constitute the largest competence
network on biometrics in Europe linking operators with industry and academia. Since the
beginning of 2014 the following members have joined our association:
Recently we could welcome our 140th member, being the Security, Technology & Privacy
Research Group of Faculty of Law of the University of Groningen, headed by Prof.Dr. Joseph
Cannatas. Other recent members are:
Dutch National Police, National Unit from The Netherlands
Ölçsan from Turkey
Xyzmo Software from Germany
Optel from Poland
Vallvi from Sweden
Innovatrics from Slovakia
Cyprus University of Technology from Cyprus
Waarith Consulting from Nigeria
University of Tirana from Albania
Nine new members from nine different countries: we are proud to this high variety of
organizations and companies, which is a straight reflection of the EAB’s mission of providing a
home for multiple stakeholders, individuals, organizations and companies. Soon the new date
and location of the EAB’s next members meeting will be announced. A call for proposals for
members contributions will follow soon. Stay in tune!
EAB Biometrics in Banking 2014: Reality Check identifies many successful
Solutions
The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) was organizing an event in Berlin on May 21 for
the financial sector with the goal to identify benefits of Biometrics in Banking as experienced in
real life operation. The seminar, hosted by the German Banking Association, provided a unique
overview on working installations of various Biometric Solutions for several purposes within the
Banking industry. It was offering decision makers in Access and Identity Services, Operational
Risk Management as well as in Document Management valuable insights how Biometric
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Solutions fulfil their purpose in everyday banking applications. The solutions help to prevent
fraud and to speed up every day processes.
Moreover there was the unique opportunity to test various Biometrics applications hands-on
with a clear banking focus in mind in a small exhibition. Within a very short time attendants had
the chance to gain a comprehensive insight when using various technologies and to reflect
their perceptions or assumptions how one or the other Biometrics technology is actually
working today.
Agenda and presentation slides of the event are available at:
http://www.eab.org/events/program/66
(EAB membership credentials required)
Due to the very positive response that we received from the financial sector we will repeat in
the second half of 2014 this event in London, UK in order to address specifically the British
finance sector. If you are interested to join the associated exhibition, please contact the
secretariat ([email protected]) for further details.
EAB organizes European Research Conference on September 8-9, 2014
On September 8-9, 2014 Europe’s largest conference on European Commission funded
research projects on biometrics and identity will take place at the premises of Fraunhofer IGD
in Darmstadt, Germany. The EAB-Research Project Conference (RPC) 2014 will be co-located
with the IEEE BIOSIG conference that will take place later that same week.
The EAB and the EU-projects FIDELITY, FastPass, BEAT, Future-ID and INGRESS, are jointly
organizing the EAB Research Project Conference (EAB-RPC), to present research results and in
order to discuss the benefit of this research for our European society. Moreover, experts from
the biometric community will discuss on a panel Ethical and Privacy Issues of Biometrics and
Identity Management. Furthermore, a second panel will be devoted to discuss and identify
future research topics in the Horizon2020 research program.
Christoph Busch, board member of the EAB and coordinator of the conference, says:
“Biometrics and Identity Management are key research topics that
are currently investigated in a number EU-projects running under
the seventh Framework program. International research is dealing
with innovative solutions for secure and privacy compliant
biometrics and federated identity management. For the first time
all major European research projects in the area of Biometrics and
Identity Management are being provided a single platform for
information exchange and discussion. This will contribute to a
stronger research community at European level and a stronger
position for European R&D in international context.”
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RPC-2014 offers a rich content featuring a variety of first class speakers, all representing
European universities, government agencies, European Commission bodies, companies and
research organizations. Experts from more than 15 European countries will participate.
The agenda of the EAB Research Project Conference 2014 and more details are available at:
http://eab.org/events/program/69
EAB on the Move
In June the EAB was present at two major events. On 11-12 June the EAB supported the Global
Payment Summit in Singapore, where Max Snijder, Secretary of the Board, hosted a workshop
on biometrics for online payments and transactions. The workshop featured Menno Stijl from
EAB-member Authasas, Boris Kennes
from IntrinsicID and Phoram Metha from
PayPal and also board member of the
FIDO alliance. From the workshop it
seems that the combination of a secure
token and biometrics as a 2nd
authentication factor can look towards a
bright future, not least because the FIDO
Alliance strongly supports this through its
UAF and U2F standards. Andrew Shaw
from EAB member Softpro provided a presentation about electronic signature recognition to
support online signing.
On June 16 the EAB was present with a stand at the
SDW2014 conference in London, displaying the many
EAB activities and growing members base.
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2. EU/EC/EP
The Swiss Center for Biometrics Research and Testing is born!
The brand new Swiss Center for Biometrics Research and Testing has been officially launched on April 8th in Martigny, at the heart of the Idiap Research Institute, a key actor of biometrics on the international scene. The creation was saluted during a press conference by the management of the institute, but also by the cantonal authorities and the City of Martigny in Swiss.
The stakes are numerous, and this new Swiss Center for Biometrics Research and Testing aspires to tackle them. “It is, at the same time, about training high level engineers and researchers, developing state-of-the-art research in a constantly evolving field, stimulating innovation by furthering technology transfer towards businesses, and in the end setting up a certification mode for evaluating the trustworthiness of biometric systems.” explains Hervé Bourlard, director of the Idiap Research Institute in Martigny. Idiap, an expert in the domain of image and speech recognition for twenty years now, positions itself today as a leader in the field of biometrics, recognized on a European and global scale. The Center will bring together companies interested in benefitting from high level research at a reasonable price – it will be them ensuring the essential financing – and academic partners doing research and acquiring new industrial partners. “The principle offers a formidable speed of technology transfer, explains Sébastien Marcel, senior researcher at Idiap and initiator of this center, for we reverse the process. At the Center, it is the companies suggesting research ideas and the researchers preparing proposals on this basis. The companies will then vote and the accepted project will be put into practice.” Through this process the companies will actually have a direct access to the researchers and the results, for an R&D at an affordable price.
Biometric data will not leave Idiap!
In biometrics, data are a precious good without which no research is possible. Our institute
possesses such data, which have been acquired in the course of its research projects, in
compliance with data protection regulations. The online platform, which will materialize the
Center in a first phase, will allow us to give access to these data without them leaving the
institute, researchers having the possibility of testing their algorithms online on these available,
but hidden, data.” This way of doing also offers a greater credibility to the research results, as
the evaluations of the biometric recognition algorithms are done in a completely transparent
manner.
More Information: http://www.biometrics-center.ch www.idiap.ch https://www.beat-
eu.org/platform/
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Italian Data Protection Authority establishes new Rules to simplify the
Adoption of Biometric Solutions
The Italian Data Protection Authority has recently issued a new provision (web doc n.3132642)
in the field of biometric recognition and graphometric signature. In particular, the provision
states treatments of biometric data for which it’s not necessary prior checking.
With the above provision, the Authority has identified certain types of biometric recognition that, based on their characteristics and aims, the types of data processed and the security measures that can be adopted in practice, have a low level of risk. The types identified from the DPA are: fingerprint recognition for computer authentication, use of fingerprint or hand topography for physical access control to "sensitive" areas or to use dangerous machinery and equipment, use of fingerprint or hand topography for facilitative purposes (as, for example, access to banks and libraries), dynamic signature for signing documents. In such cases it is not necessary to submit prior request provided that all technical, organizational and procedural measures are taken to elevate the levels of security.
DPA has also developed guidelines that analyzes the various types of existing biometric processing, including those for which there remains an obligation of prior checking (iris, venous structure, face recognition etc.) and identified for each of these types, the ways in which data can be processed and the specific security measures which must be taken case by case.
Particular attention is paid by the DPA to the securing of mobile technology (such as tablet or PC) that could easily be compromised or lost.
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3. Outside Europe
American Civil Liberties Union wants Legislation to enforce Facial
Recognition Privacy Measures
While the American Civil Libert ies Union has endorsed the use of a voluntary code of conduct
for companies to ut ilize in order to maintain privacy in the face of emerging facial recognit ion
technologies, the lobby group would rather legislat ion be passed which enforces privacy
measures.
“While voluntary codes of conduct represent an important step in protect ing biometric
information from exploitat ion and misuse, it is impossible to protect against the negative
effects of this powerful technology fully without government intervent ion and statutorily
created legal protect ions,” the ACLU said in a statement submitted to the U.S. Department of
Commerce.
The ACLU had been cooperat ing with the Department of Commerce’s National
Telecommunicat ions and Information Administrat ion (NTIA) to develop a voluntary code of
conduct that specifies how the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights applies to facial recognit ion
technology in a commercial environment. The civil libert ies lobby group made the comment in
its submission. Other stakeholder groups were also invited to submit proposed principles that
could be incorporated into a voluntary code of conduct.
Read more:
http://www.biometricupdate.com/201405/aclu-wants-legislat ion-to-enforce-facial-recognit ion-
privacy-measures
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/f iles/nt ia/publications/stakeholder_principles_5_16_2014.pdf
Congressional Committee adopts Amendment to remove NSA from Crypto
Standards Process
On May 21, 2014, by voice vote the House Science and Technology Committee adopted an
amendment to the FIRST Act removing the requirement that NSA be consulted on encrypt ion
standards. The Amendment was authored by Congressman Alan Grayson.
The National Inst itute for Standards and Technology, or NIST, a federal agency that develops
cryptographic standards used to protect internet communicat ions around the world, has been
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required by US federal law to work with NSA on all such standards since 1987. The connect ion
between the two organizat ions was strengthened in a 2002 law, the Federal Information
Systems Management Act.
The FIRST Act - or “Front iers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology” - is intended to
authorize programs and increase funding in research fields. Representat ive Grayson’s
amendment removes the requirement in federal law that NIST consult with NSA, instead
allowing NIST to request NSA assistance on an as-needed basis.
The NSA’s efforts to keep the internet secure often takes a back seat to the NSA’s now-
infamous role in mass surveillance and foreign intelligence gathering. Late last year, the
Guardian, the New York Times, and ProPublica reported that the NSA used its posit ion to
weaken encrypt ion standards and preserve its surveillance capabilit ies, thereby putt ing
internet users around the world at risk.
Read more:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/26/congress_divorces_nist_from_nsa/
https://www.accessnow.org/blog/2014/05/21/congressional-committee-adopts-amendment-to-
remove-nsa-from-crypto-standard
Biometric-based, seamless Airport processing to be trialled at Aruba Airport
A trial of an innovative passenger processing system that uses biometrics as the key passenger
token at airport check-points will take place at Aruba Airport later in 2014.
Labelled ‘Happy Flow’, the system makes use of facial recognition technology and state-of-the-
art gates, and aims to enable a seamless, faster and more intuitive airport experience, which
does not require them to present their passport and boarding pass on numerous occasions
during their airport journey.
Confirmation of the trial was made at a special event held at Aruba Airport, where Vision-Box
presented a demonstration of the concept. “This project is indeed a revolution in the airport
ecosystem,” said Jean-François Lennon, Director of Global Business Development, Sales &
Marketing at Vision-Box. “For the first time ever, biometrics is being used as the main
passenger identification token in an airport. Instead of using either a passport or boarding pass,
the passenger swiftly goes through all airport control points where he simply has to have his
identity checked by looking at facial recognition cameras.”
Read more: http://www.futuretravelexperience.com/2014/05/biometric-based-seamless-
airport-processing-trialled-aruba-airport/#
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4. Industry
Never forgetting a Face - has Face Recognition been taken too far?
A physicist, Dr. At ick is one of the pioneer entrepreneurs of modern face recognit ion. Having
helped advance the fundamental face-recognit ion technology in the 1990s, he went into
business and promoted the systems to government agencies looking to ident ify criminals or
prevent ident ity fraud. “We saved lives,” he said during a conference in mid-March. “We have
solved crimes.”
Face-recognit ion today could enable mass surveillance, “basically
robbing everyone of their anonymity,” he says, and inhibit people’s
normal behavior outside their homes. Point ing to the intelligence
documents made public by Edward J. Snowden, he adds that once
companies amass consumers’ facial data, government agencies
might obtain access to it, too.
To many in the biometrics industry, Dr. At ick’s warning seems
Cassandra-like. Face recognit ion to them is no different from a car,
a neutral technology whose advantages far outweigh the risks. The
conveniences of biometrics seem self-evident: Your unique code
automatically accompanies you everywhere. They envision a world
where, instead of having to rely on losable ID cards or on a jumble of easily forgettable — not to
mention hackable — passwords, you could unlock your smartphone or gain entry to banks,
apartment complexes, parking garages and health clubs just by showing your face.
Photo credits: Tony Cenicola / The New York Times
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/technology/never-forgetting-a-
face.html?_r=1#story-continues-1
Westpac tests Fingerprint Access to Mobile Banking
Some smartphone owners should soon be able to log on to Westpac's internet banking service
using only their f ingerprint.
Westpac New Zealand has been experimenting with using the fingerprint scanning feature
built into Samsung’s Galaxy S5 smartphone and said it would soon become the “first bank in the
world” to use that to let customers log on to internet banking .
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The bank has been using NZ as a test bed for new technologies before introducing them to
Australia. The fingerprint ing trial comes as it cont inues to test Google Glass.
A YouTube video released by the bank indicates there will be a one-off registrat ion process
when customers would enter their bank username and password and then register their
f ingerprint. After that only their f ingerprint would be needed to access internet banking.
Fingerprint scanning is expected to be incorporated into a wider range of high-end
smartphones over t ime. Westpac spokeswoman Chris Mirams said he expected the service
would be available later this year.
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/westpac-tests-
fingerprint-access-to-mobile-banking-20140414-zquvp.html
YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT0omoBfe_0
MTRIX appointed by Lumidigm as an Authorized Distributor in Europe
Albuquerque, NM, May 27, 2014: Lumidigm, part of HID Global, today announced that it is expanding the distribution channel in Europe of its high performing multispectral imaging biometric sensors with the appointment of MTRIX as an authorized distributor of Lumidigm products. MTRIX is based in northern Germany and will concentrate on continental Europe, primarily in the enterprise market with a focus on healthcare and finance.
“This is good news for our growing customer base in Europe as now we can provide hands-on local support for our biometric solutions," says Greg Sarrail, Lumidigm vice president of solutions business development. "MTRIX provides the right combination of industry expertise with a focus on solving issues related to identity and network authentication. Their direct interaction with the integration channel and endeavors to exceed end-user requirements fit perfectly with Lumidigm’s high-quality value proposition.”
Multispectral imaging is a sophisticated technology specifically developed by Lumidigm to
overcome the fingerprint capture problems found with conventional imaging systems. This
more-effective technology is based on the use of multiple spectrums of light and advanced
optical techniques to extract unique fingerprint characteristics from both the surface and
subsurface of the skin. That subsurface capability is important because the fingerprint ridges
seen on the surface of the finger have their foundation beneath the surface of the skin, in the
capillary beds and other sub-dermal structures.
More Information:
www.lumidigm.com
www.mtrix.de
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5. Events
European Biometrics Research and Industry Awards 2014: Presentation of
finalists on September 10th
The European Association for Biometrics (EAB) has launched the eighth European Biometrics
Research and Industry Awards. These prestigious awards are granted annually to individuals
who have been judged by a panel of internationally respected experts to be making a
significant contribution to the field of biometrics research and innovation in Europe.
The award is stimulating innovation in academic research as well as in industry. Thus biometric
experts with either of the following profiles should submit their work. Academic researchers
enrolled in the last or penultimate year of a Ph.D. program or who have obtained a Ph.D., with
major focus on biometrics, from a European academic institution no later than two years
before the given deadline, might consider applying for the awards. Further industrial
researchers employed by European companies whose core business is biometrics might
consider applying for the industry award, which will be granted to the candidate that has
created the strongest impact for industry.
Applicants had submitted a research paper and supporting information by end of May, 2014.
These papers are currently reviewed by a jury composed of internationally recognized experts
in the field of biometrics who will judge the academic and scientific quality for the EAB
academic research award and the novelty, impact, applicability and other business aspects for
the EAB industry award. The finalist will present their work to all EAB members on September
10th in Darmstadt. See: http://eab.org/events/program/57
For all information about the award please visit: http://www.eab.org/award/cfp.html.
You can also contact the chair of the award committee, Prof. Patrizio Campisi:
EAB Research Projects Conference (EAB-RPC) 2014, Darmstadt 8-9
September 2014
Biometrics and Identity Management are key research topics that are currently investigated in
a number EU-projects running under the seventh Framework program. International research is
dealing with innovative solutions for secure and privacy compliant biometrics and federated
identity management.
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The EAB and the EU-projects FIDELITY, FastPass, BEAT, Future-ID, INGRESS, are jointly
organizing a Research Project Conference (EAB-RPC), to present research results and in order
to discuss the benefit of this research for our European society. Moreover experts from the
biometric community will discuss on a panel Ethical and Privacy Issues of Biometrics and
Identity Management. Furthermore a second panel will be devoted to discuss and identify
future research topics in the Horizon2020 research program.
Read more: http://www.eab.org/events/program/69
International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group,
Darmstadt 10-12, September 2014
The BIOSIG 2014 is Europe’s state of the art conference that will present innovations and best
practices in key areas of biometrics R&D that can be transferred into future applications. The
conference addresses various topics, such as biometric standards and interoperability,
multimodal and multi-biometrics (sensor, modality, sample, feature, score and decision
fusion), security analysis of biometric components or systems, on-card comparison, fake
resistance, liveness detection, aging of reference data, template protection, derivation of
cryptographic keys from biometrics, biometric middleware, user interface design for biometric
systems, biometric performance measurement, sample quality, best practices, usability,
forensics and other emerging applications, ethical, legal and socio-technological aspects,
biometrics for public administrations.
The conference is jointly organized by the following organizations:
Competence Center for Applied Security Technology (CAST)
German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)
European Association for Biometrics (EAB)
Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC)
TeleTrusT Association
Norwegian Biometrics Laboratory (NBL)
Center for Advanced Security Research Darmstadt (CASED)
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGD
Special Interest Group BIOSIG of the Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI).
Read more: http://fg-biosig.gi.de/biosig2014
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ID World International Congress, Frankfurt, Germany 18-20 November 2014
The ID World International Congress is the prime conference on the evolving world of
identification. It is the only international forum that looks at the advanced ID industry as a
whole, rather than focusing on a specific technology or vertical sector. Delegates from all over
the world will meet in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 18-20 November 2014 to learn from
their peers and network among experts in the conference as well as in the Euro ID exhibition.
EAB members are invited to secure a space at the Biometrics Pavilion at the EuroID Exhibition
in Frankfurt, which goes alongside the famous IDWorld Conference. You will get a reduction of
15% when you apply for your space at the Biometrics Pavilion. Please contact the secretariat
([email protected]) for further details.
Read more: http://www.mesago.de/de/EID/home.htm
International Joint Conference on Biometrics - IJCB'14, Clearwater Beach,
USA 29 September – 2 October
International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2014) combines two major biometrics
research annual conferences, the Biometrics Theory, Applications and Systems (BTAS)
conference and the International Conference on Biometrics (ICB). The blending of these two
conferences in 2014 is through special agreement between the IEEE Biometrics Council and the
IAPR TC-4, and presents an exciting event for the entire worldwide biometrics research
community. The success of IJCB 2011 organized in Washington DC during September 2011 has
generated huge support from the biometrics community to repeat such blending of two
conferences in the year 2014. This conference is a result of major worldwide consensus to join
the two major biometrics meetings and to establish IJCB as a venue for presenting biometrics
research results of highest quality.
Read more: http://ijcb2014.org/
International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition -
FG'15, Ljubljana, Slovenia 4-8 May 2015
The 11th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture recognition, IEEE FG
2015, will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia on May 4-8, 2015. IEEE FG 2015 is the premier
international forum for research in image and video-based face, gesture, and body movement
recognition. It presents research that advances the state-of-the-art in these and related areas,
leading to new capabilities in various application domains. The conference will feature a
comprehensive scientific program as well as industry exhibitions and demonstrations of the
15
most recent technological achievements from academia. The paper submission deadline is
September 30, 2014.
If you want to become an exhibitor or conference sponsor or learn more about the
opportunities for organizers: workshops, tutorials, special sessions, panels:
Read more: http://www.fg2015.org/
International Conference on Biometrics - ICB'15, Phuket, Thailand 20-24
May 2015
The 8th IAPR International Conference on Biometrics (ICB 2015) is planned to be hosted in
Thailand from May 20th to 22nd , 2015. ICB is an official conference of the IAPR Technical
Committee on Biometrics (TC4) and is also co-sponsored by IEEE Biometrics Council.
For 2015, ICB will be held at Phuket, Thailand. It will have oral sessions, posters, tutorials,
demonstrations, competitions and a government track to coincide with the beginning of
ASEAN Economic Community 2015 (AEC2015).
The conference will have a broad scope and invites papers that advance biometric
technologies, sensor design, feature extraction and matching algorithms, analysis of security
and privacy, and evaluation of social impact of biometrics technology. Topics of interest
include all areas of current Biometrics research and applications.
Read more: http://icb2015.org/
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6. Reports
The 2nd International Workshop on Biometrics and Forensics (IWBF 2014) –
March 27-28, 2014 - Valetta
More than 80 participants from 30 different Countries attended IWBF 2014 held at the
University of Malta Valletta Campus on the 27th and 28th March which was opened by the
Commissioner of Police. It was organized by the European Co-operation in Science and
Technology (COST) Action IC1106 "Integrating Biometrics and Forensics for the Digital Age"
and the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) in collaboration with the
Malta Council for Science and Technology, the University of Malta and the Malta Police Force.
The workshop was co-sponsored by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), International
Association of Pattern Recognition
(IAPR), Institution of Engineering and
Technology (IET), European Association
for Signal Processing (EURASIP) and
European Association for Biometrics
(EAB). The proceedings are available on
IEEE Xplore. Authors of selected papers
were invited to submit an extended and
updated version for consideration for
publication in the IET Biometrics journal.
27 papers were selected and included in the technical program. Sessions included Forensic
Fingerprint Identification, Biometric Analysis of Crime Scene traces and their interpretation
including palmprints, Audio Biometrics for Forensic Examination including speaker recognition
and Physical Biometrics for Forensic Examination including iris recognition and gait.
Keynote invited speakers included:
Prof. Sargur Srihari (University at
Buffalo) who discussed the
quantification of uncertainty in
forensic identification of fingerprints
and hand written documents; Prof.
Joaquin Gonzalez-Rodriguez
(Universidad Autonoma de Madrid)
who gave an overview of the NIST
series of speaker recognition
evaluations and technologies; and
Prof. Didier Meuwly (Netherlands
17
Forensic Institute) who discussed validation of computer assisted methods for forensic
evaluation of biometric traces; Dr Andrzej Drygajlo (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de
Lausanne) who spoke about the ENFSI 2011 Monopoly Program: Improving Forensic
Methodologies Across Europe (IFMAE)
A panel session “Biometric Evidence Today and Tomorrow” was chaired by Dr. Andrzej
Drygajlo (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne) and panelists included Prof. Sargur
Srihari (University at Buffalo), Prof. Didier Meuwly (Netherlands Forensic Institute), Dr. Daniel
Ramos (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid), and Prof. Paulo Labato Correia (Instituto Superior
Tecnico, Portugal). The panel was successful in extending the discussion to actively involve the
audience.
A poster session included posters about facial imaging and recognition, ear pattern detection
and biometric applications. The workshop provided an international forum to develop
synergies between biometrics and forensic science. Many outstanding researchers of both
communities (biometrics and forensics), as well as practitioners and students, actively
participated in IWBF 2014, contributing to the success of the event.
Norwegian Biometrics Forum Meeting, May 9th, 2014
On May 9th the Norwegian Biometrics Forum organized its spring meeting at the National ID
Center in Oslo. At the meeting there were 45 participants from several government agencies,
industry and research organizations from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and other non-
Scandinavian countries. The meeting was organized in collaboration with the European
Association for Biometrics. The Norwegian Biometrics Forum is an informal meeting place for
presentation and discussion in the field of the use of biometrics.
Highlights of the meeting were the presentation from Marianne Henriksen (Skattedirektoratet
Norway) and her report on the reforming of the Norwegian population registry and also the
talk from Annar Bolin Hansen (National Police Directorate) on the concepts and introduction
Norwegian id-card system. Also report from industry and
academia were provided, which were addressing
multimodal biometrics, smartphone based eye
recognition and also continuous authentication for access
control purposes. Further a panel discussion with Knut
Lindelien, Magnar Aukrust, Marianne Henriksen,
Annar Bolin Hansen and Atle Årnes address issues
regarding the use of biometrics and privacy.
More information and slides: http://www.eab.org/events/program/68
The National ID Center is the host of the Norwegian Biometrics Forum (NBF). The next NBF
meeting is scheduled for November 27th, 2014.
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CEN TC224 Working Group 18 "Interoperability of biometric recorded data"
Meeting – May 15-16, 2014 - Paris
The CEN TC224 Working Group 18 "Interoperability of biometric recorded data" met at AFNOR
in Paris at May 15/16, 2014. Experts from France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Switzerland,
and UK took part in this meeting and discussed the following topics:
Project on "Biometric application profiles for law enforcement and border control
authorities using portable identification systems"
Project on "Environmental influence testing methodology for operational deployments
of European ABC systems"
Transition of CEN/TS 16428 "Best Practices for slap ten-print captures" to ISO/IEC JTC
1/SC 37 . Newly published CEN/TS 16634 "Recommendations for using biometrics in
European Automated Border Control"
Publication of ISO/IEC 2382-37 "Biometrics Vocabulary" with (initially) French and
German (and, most likely, Spanish) translations in an European Standard. Volunteers for
other European languages are appreciated.
Project on "Detection of Suspicious Biometric Samples for European ABC"
WG18 reviewed the current SC37 projects, which might be of interest for Europe. Furthermore,
the WG experts have been informed on the new Spanish Citizen Card, got an update on
Mandate M/487 Phase 2 from the European Commission for the area of border security,
revisited the German NB proposal for a work item on "Privacy-by- Design method for the
development of biometric systems", and discussed the SC37 initiative on the upcoming
generation three of the 19794 data format family.
The next WG 18 meeting will take place October 8/9 in Madrid. Interested experts willing to
contribute to the Projects of WG18 are strongly encouraged to contact the group via their
National Standards Body.
EAB Seminar Biometrics in Banking - Reality Check 2014 – May 21, 2014 -
Berlin
Today Biometrics in Banking are covering the fields of physical access control, the provision of
payment services, interactions in self-service and virtual branches as well as corporate banking
solutions. All the solutions shown in Berlin on May 21 have in common that they are compliant
with the high requirements of the banking industry with regards to security, performance and
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usability. The speakers were explaining in their presentations how their systems fulfil these
requirements as well as which aspects of user acceptance and user experiences are important
to be kept in mind. They were providing hard facts about improvements in efficiency as well as
soft facts such as the use of Biometrics to position the bank as innovative and highly customer
oriented. The seminar was hosted by the Association for German banks and chaired by Prof.
Dr. Christoph Busch, board member of the EAB.
Participants of the seminar were provided with
insights first hand from the following speakers:
Michal Lichner of Anasoft and Alain Sarraf of
Softpro were introducing how Biometrics of
handwritten Signatures captured on Tablets and
Smartphones play a vital part to create
trustworthy electronic signatures and help banks
to go paperless in many situations. One of the
case studies presented focused on an application,
which is running for more than a year now at
Cetelem, brand of the BNP Paribas Finance Group, in Slovakia. Customers fill documents and
sign them within several applications on mobile tablets (in this particular case, a Samsung
Galaxy Note 10.1). Documents created by the application, which was demonstrated live to the
audience are legally binding providing strong evidential weight. The bank is saving the
processing of approximately 1.6 mil sheets of paper every year. Additionally, they are saving
the time to which would have been necessary to amend mistakes caused by manual data entry.
Finally, retailers enjoy an improved cash flow as payments are settled on the next day after a
sale (processing time with paper process is approximately one to two weeks). Moreover, both
speakers were sharing experiences with E-Signing deployments in banks around the world.
Oliver von Treuenfels of Dermalog, a supplier of a fingerprint recognition system, was sharing
some insights about projects in banking with a focus on two projects in particular: In Brazil
1,100 devices are in operation at 900 locations today and the project is live for 18 months now.
In February 2014 a large scale project kicked off in Nigeria which is implementation yet. In the
end it should see 30,000 devices in operation in more than 10,000 locations. The primary goal
for the banks was to reduce their exposure for attempts of identity fraud whether internally or
externally. Hence the applications also include enrolling banking customers. Mr von Treuenfels
was also reflecting about some common misperceptions among bankers about Biometrics in
general and fingerprint recognition in particular.
Rui Wang of Techshino was outlining the track record of using Biometrics in Chinese banks for
11 years and the potential to leverage this experience in the framework of European
understanding how to apply Biometrics. Their “Smart Biometric Identification Open System
(SmartBIOS)” is designed to recognize Biometrics such as fingerprint, face and iris is primarily
used to replace passwords. The primary goals when implanting the system have been to reduce
a bank’s exposure to internal fraud and to provide more convenience for bank’s employees. By
May 2014 Techshino has rolled out around more than 700,000 devices which are in operation in
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4 out of 5 national banks as well as in more than 20 banks on province level and 50 banks on
municipal level.
Mohamed Chair of First Attribute shared its his experience in operating a voice recognition
system in a large German bank for ten years now. The “VoiceTrust” system which is connected
to an SAP system is used for the password reset. Hence it involves every employee within a
bank. In the case presented approximately 6,000 users rely on an easy-to-use self-service which
is available 24/7/365 using their mobiles or office phones. On an average day there are around
60 password resets. In the particular case voice recognition was the preferred choice at is does
not require additional hardware. The ROI was achieved after 18 months. Calculated savings in
IT helpdesk activities are around 150,000 Euro/year and 3,000 working hours.
Peter Jones of Hitachi was presenting how finger vein recognition is used for bank’s customer
and employee authentication in Poland and Turkey. Front offices and back offices of bank
branches are equipped with terminals as well as ATMs. This technology is used in the banking
space since 2010. By the end of 2014 a total of 6,730 terminals will be operating in Poland and
4,000 in Turkey. The drivers to invest in Hitachi’s solutions were the intention to move away
from card based and scheme controlled transactions as well as to reduce the exposure to both
external and internal fraud attempts. Peter Jones was outlining how process costs were cut
down and customer experience that their transaction with their bank is simplified and more
secure at the same time.
Andreas Ewig of the German Savings Banks
Finance Group (DSGV) and Andreas Bongers of
GFT reported about a pilot project with which
the acceptance of biometric technology was
tested at ATMs in 2010. This project was started
at a time when the interception of user data
("skimming") piled up at ATMs and banks were
looking for wider security mechanisms and
thereby wanted to test the user acceptance at
an early stage. Another goal was to generate
first experiences in order to explore the
relationship between costs, security and usability with the use of biometric authentication
procedures. For a test two machines were equipped with devices for the detection of
fingerprints or palm vein. As a framework it was
decided to store the biometric reference data on
the current chip cards of the user and to use
them for authentication operations. Based on
the findings in the pilot the two speakers
addressed the challenges, which need to be
overcome for a future production use.
The concluding panel discussion summarized
the major opportunities and challenges for
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biometrics in the banking and financial services industry and outlined, what is needed to make
biometrics in the banking and financial services industry a success. See below for a detailed
report on the panel discussion.
Agenda and presentation slides of the event are available at:
http://www.eab.org/events/program/66
(EAB membership credentials required)
Panel Discussion at EAB Seminar Biometrics in Banking - Reality Check 2014
– May 21, 2014 - Berlin
The following questions were put central to the panel discussion, which was moderated by Max
Snijder:
What are to your opinion the major opportunities and challenges for biometrics in the
banking and financial services industry, also taking into account what you have
heard and seen during the day?
What is needed to make biometrics in the banking and financial services industry a
success? Just mention max. 3 of your top priorities!
Will biometric authentication through smart phones change the play of business of
the traditional banking and financial services industry?
The experts who took part at the panel discussion were Mamadoe Ba, marketing Director at
Morpho in charge of identity services market, Thomas Bengs who works across Fujitsu and its
global partners, Werner Blessing who is the founder and CEO of BIOMETRY, Javier Ortega-
Garcia who is currently a Full Professor at the Signal Theory Chair in Universidad Autonoma de
Madrid, Waldemar Grudzien is Director at the German Association for Banks and Douwe
Lycklama who is partner at Innopay and a veteran in e-transactions, e-payments, e-invoicing,
e-id and mobile payments.
MB kicked off by telling us about the large scale projects Morpho is deploying in Latin America,
where ATM’s are equipped with palm vein scanners. He emphasized the importance of the use
case, which is the key to successful deployments. Use cases are based on requirements and the
overall context, which all may differ per global region or even per country. For example:
requirements in Germany and France will be very different from Latin America, as many online
processes are already being done online. Secondly he advised that we should rely more on
what the user already has in his hand, e.g. a smartphone. This takes away the need for large
investments and will create less obstacles for user acceptance.
TB could report about many biometric projects with banks. These projects need to be put into
the wider perspective of the financial market and not just banks. He marked that the financial
market is increasingly becoming mobile. He emphasized the importance of convenience and
the understanding of the customers. Accuracy is also important, as we don’t want queuing in
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front of an ATM. So accuracy and convenience need to go hand in hand. We should also
understand and being able to apply different concepts of storage of biometrics: at Walmart
(US) they may choose for biometrics in the cloud, while in Germany and other EU countries
Template-on-Card may be preferred.
WB confirms that the ‘mobile explosion’ has happened. Smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks etc.
are all in need of flexible authentication mechanisms, offering the possibility of using different
levels of trust on a transparent and user friendly way. Using voice, face, gait, location etc. is a
continuous authentication mobile payments can be authorized conveniently and securely.
JOG just reminded us that during the last 20 years the performance of biometrics has been
increased dramatically. Error rates dropped from 15% EER to under 1% EER. This should take
away any doubts that biometrics may not be sufficiently reliable. Being an expert in speaker
verification, JOG emphasized the high variability traits that speaker verification offers. Today
the issue is not whether biometrics are sufficiently accurate or secure. It is all about usability,
which means high quality, well designed sensors which are seamlessly integrated in devices
and applications.
WG took it from an end user / operator point of view and underlined the importance of a sound
business case: how many customers will I gain by introducing biometrics? Taking this bottom
line approach off course calls into question the pricing levels of the suppliers. Asking 1,5 Mln
Euro for a 1 year license for speaker recognition software by far outweighs the benefits of
solving the issue of lost numbers and passwords the traditional way. He advocated to keep the
authentication in the hands of the banking business and to build up an alliance with
smartphone manufacturers like Samsung and LG. Telekom carriers and smartcard providers
preferably should not be directly involved in such an authentication scheme. He took
SecurePay (Australia Post) as a good example. In addition WG called for a standard for
biometric banking. WG could confirm the previous speakers, who said that biometrics should
bother the customer. Instead, it should be “me-on-the-fly”.
DL spoke on behalf of the whole panel by saying that it is all about convenience. Actions should
be one click away. In addition, we should move from super-security towards a risk management
based approach. Coming from the payments domain, he advocated for more information
sharing by the biometrics community towards the payment sector. Myths (both positive AND
negative) need to be busted. He could also confirm that in his business domain many
interesting pilot projects were ongoing or in the pipeline.
In summary, three keywords remain from the discussion: mobile, convenience and standards.
Finally, our host of today, Waldemar Grudzien, confirmed that most larger banks in Germany
are performing biometric projects and studies. More than 10.000 relevant people from the
banking domain have been approached for this workshop, e.g. through banking magazines.
Although the response from the banking environment was modest, the workshop had been
very useful. A follow-up workshop will be planned for early 2015 (probably in London).
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BiForD – Special Session on Biometrics & Forensics & De-identification and
Privacy Protection (BiForD 2014) – May 29, 2014 - Opatija
COST Action IC1206 "De-identification for
Privacy Protection in Multimedia Content"
and COST Action IC1106 "Integrating
Biometrics and Forensics for the Digital
Age“ in cooperation with Croatian Society
MIPRO, IEEE Croatia Section, and
University of Zagreb organized this Special
Session. The Session has brought together
researchers, professionals, and
practitioners who have presented and
discussed the recent developments and challenges in Biometrics, Forensics, and Privacy De-
identification in Multimedia Content. BiForD was chaired by Professor Slobodan Ribaric from
the University of Zagreb. The special session took place from May 29th until May 30th in
Opatija, Croatia.
There were 23 accepted papers (rejection rate was 30 percent) which covered three main
topics: de-identification, verification and identification, and social and legal aspects of de-
identification.
On the first day, Anil Jain gave a comprehensive introduction to biometrics and presented a
selection of results on the identification of perpetrators in forensics using biometrics. He
presented a remarkable technique for enhancement and recognition using latent fingerprints
on non-homogenous backgrounds. Moreover, Professor Jain presented recent work on
classification of tattoos from surveillance videos for the purpose of collecting further
information about a suspect and his background. The second keynote speech by Krum Garkov
highlighted current challenges and achievements for biometrics in large sale systems in the
context of passport security.
All sessions were well-attended by participants from all over Europe and some visitors from the
US and Asia. BiForD 2014 consisted of three sub-sessions. The technical talks were
complemented by contributions on legal
and sociological aspects of surveillance
and biometric identification in public
venues.
In session 1, several new approaches for
automatic de-identification for face and
speaker data were discussed. In the
afternoon, there were contributions from
the legal and the sociological aspects
followed by talks on activity recognition,
natural language processing and gait recognition using skeletal data from the KINECT system.
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The third session on Friday morning featured miscellaneous approaches on image processing
and biometrics, such as fir instance fingerprint alignment, affine invariant descriptors, skin
detection and a study on periocular features for presentation attack detection in iris biometrics.
Special Session on Robustness and Security in Biometrics at Information
Hiding and Multimedia Security (IH&MMSec 2014) – June 13, 2014 -
Salzburg
Biometric systems enable reliable automatic identification or verification of humans based on
physiological and/or behavioural characteristics. The need of biometric systems has seen an
enormous growth in day-to-day activities due to their ease of use, accuracy and throughput.
Cutting-edge biometric recognition
systems offer increased security and
privacy, more robustness versus spoofing
attacks, and higher temporal invariance
at even more relaxed signal acquisition
constraints. In order to satisfy more
demanding market needs with respect to
security and robustness by retaining high
accuracy, scalability and usability, this
special session provides a platform for
discussions about recent developments
in the domain.
The aim of the session is to promote recent research tasks, to identify new challenges and to
present advances in the area of security and robustness for biometrics, including (but not
limited to): biometric encryption, cancellable biometrics, privacy-enhancing biometrics, anti-
spoofing devices and algorithms, template aging, template protection, novel sensors and
databases, robust segmentation and detection, biometric surveillance, security and privacy
assessment.
Although this session happened to be the last session of the conference it was well attended.
With a rather low rate of acceptance, especially in this session, the audience could hear two
outstanding talks held by R. Raghavendra from the Norwegian Biometrics Laboratory and M.
Zohner from the Center for Advanced Security Research on the topics of robust palmprint
recognition and privacy-preserving biometric identification, respectively.
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7. Impressum
Publisher: European Association for Biometrics Editors: Christian Rathgeb, Max Snijder Production: European Association for Biometrics Contact: [email protected] / [email protected] Phone: +31 624 603809 Web: www.eab.org