EAB Newsletter, edition July 2014

EAB Newsletter

Edition July 2014

Editors: Christian Rathgeb, Max Snijder

Contact: secretariat@eab.org

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 (secretariat@eab.org) 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:

patrizio.campisi@uniroma3.it

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

(secretariat@eab.org) 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

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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

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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: m.snijder@eubiometricsgroup.eu / secretariat@eab.org Phone: +31 624 603809 Web: www.eab.org