Biometric Solutions for Personal Identification

Abstract

With a high level of accuracy and ease of use, the technology of biometrics has the recent years gained popularity and in many cases replaced traditional identification methods based on passwords or tokens. While fingerprint matching is the most mature and most widely used technique of today, several others exist. Among these is ear recognition, which so far has received scant attention, but still has showed good results in performance. The thesis gives a general presentation of the biometric technology, with its advantages and challenges. In addition, the new and novel technology of ear recognition using thermal imagery is elaborated and discussed. An experiment of small scale, aiming to test the ability of thermal ear recognition as a method for identification, was performed. The test also considers the affect on the performance when the ear temperature varies. An EER of 20.7 % with a corresponding detection rate of 78 % was achieved when considering only ears with the same temperature. By including the applied temperature changes, an increase in the EER to 31.5 % with a corresponding detection rate of 72 % was observed. The results indicate that thermal images of the ears are not sufficiently distinguishable for use in establishing identity by itself, but it might be suitable as a supplement to other biometric techniques.