Title: Enabling secure authentication using fingerprint and visual cryptography

Authors: Sneha Manohar Annappanavar; Pallavi Vijay Chavan

Addresses: Department of Computer Engineering, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, D.Y. Patil (Deemed to be University), Nerul, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India; Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala (East), Maharashtra, Mumbai, India ' Department of Information Technology, Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, D.Y. Patil (Deemed to be University), Nerul, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Abstract: Biometrics is the form of information associated with an individual that helps in unique identification and verification at different platforms. The fingerprint is an important biometric information and has become most popular for authentication and authorisation. However, maintaining the secrecy of fingerprint data becomes a challenging task over the cloud. This paper presents a novel encryption approach using visual cryptography that encrypts fingerprints and stores them in the form of shares. The visual cryptography scheme implemented in this paper is expansionless and has no greying effect. The authors have collected fingerprint data from residential societies. The algorithm achieves 100% of the peak signal-to-noise ratio. This ratio is highest when compared with state-of-the-art methods of visual cryptography schemes. The mean square error achieved is zero which helps in 100% correct identification of the fingerprint. The paper also presents a secure voting mechanism using fingerprint authentication for general elections.

Keywords: biometrics; fingerprint recognition; confidentiality; authentication; visual cryptography; secret sharing; shares.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBM.2024.141949

International Journal of Biometrics, 2024 Vol.16 No.6, pp.614 - 639

Received: 23 May 2023
Accepted: 26 Jan 2024
Published online: 03 Oct 2024 *

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