Evaluation of Contact versus Contactless Fingerprint Data (Final Report v2)

• NCJ Number: 245146
• Date Published: January 2014
• Length: 116 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2010-IJ-CX-K024
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Test/Measurement; Program/Project Evaluation
• Award: Sensor, Surveillance, and Biometric Technologies Center of Excellence

Annotation

This study compared the fingerprint match performance of legacy/livescan fingerprint data (collected from traditional two-dimensional contact-based fingerprint devices) and three-dimensional contactless fingerprint scanners (CFP).

Abstract

The evaluation proved to be the first quantitative demonstration by a third party that fingerprints collected under ideal conditions from contact and contactless fingerprint devices can be matched against each other in a statistically meaningful way using two-dimensional projections; however, matching contactless images to contact images provided less match performance than a set of contact images compared to one another. In addition, matching images produced from two different contactless devices provided poor results compared to currently available technologies. As one of the first research efforts to investigate the match performance and interoperability of contact and contactless fingerprint data, this work has made important first steps; however, there are many related areas or follow-up tasks that could be pursued. The dataset collection and foundational analysis should aid research and enterprise efforts to improve biometric and identity management knowledge and capabilities. The data analysis was conducted using a fingerprint dataset collected by West Virginia University (WVU). Fingerprint data were collected from 500 subjects using the devices that were compared for the study. Twenty matching runs were performed on the data collected from the devices. Matching results were analyzed and compared based on Time Accept Rate and the National Institute of Standards and Technology Fingerprint Image Quality (NFIQ) score. 72 figures and appended WVU data types and organization and WVU non-contact fingerprint collection report