Abstract
M.Sc.
Determining the identity of a person has become vital in today’s world.
Emphasis on security has become increasingly more common in the last few decades, not only
in Information Technology, but across all industries. One of the main principles of security is
that a system only be accessed by a legitimate user.
According to the ISO 7498/2 document [1] (an international standard which defines an
information security system architecture) there are 5 pillars of information security. These are
Identification/Authentication, Confidentiality, Authorization, Integrity and Non Repudiation.
The very first line of security in a system is identifying and authenticating a user. This ensures
that the user is who he/she claims to be, and allows only authorized individuals to access your
system.
Technologies have been developed that can automatically recognize a person by his unique
physical features. This technology, referred to as ‘biometrics’, allows us to quickly, securely and
conveniently identify an individual. Biometrics solutions have already been deployed
worldwide, and it is rapidly becoming an acceptable method of identification in the eye of the
public.
As useful and advanced as unimodal (single biometric sample) biometric technologies are, they
have their limits. Some of them aren’t completely accurate; others aren’t as secure and can be
easily bypassed.
Recently it has been reported to the congress of the U.S.A [2] that about 2 percent of the
population in their country do not have a clear enough fingerprint for biometric use, and
therefore cannot use their fingerprints for enrollment or verification. This same report
recommends using a biometric system with dual (multimodal) biometric inputs, especially for
large scale systems, such as airports.
In this dissertation we will investigate and compare multimodal biometric techniques, in order
to determine how much of an advantage lies in using this technology, over its unimodal
equivalent.