Biometric technologies provide a convenient and secure way of identification and authentication, superior to traditional methods based on the usage of tokens and/or passwords. As a unique feature of these new technologies, biometrics cannot be considered as secrets: our faces/irises can be photographed and our voices can be recorded at any time; additionally, we leave our fingerprints and DNA everywhere we go. Therefore, reliable methods must be put in place to ensure that biometric samples submitted were taken from live tissue of the legitimate user. This is especially crucial in remote authentication over open networks where neither the end user’s terminal nor the data transmission channels can be controlled by systems operators.

It has been already proven that some types of fingerprinting hardware and even iris recognition cameras can be spoofed by certain means; not to speak of other, less reliable biometric methods such as face or voice recognition. This presentation gives an overview of associated threats and risks as well as scientifically possible liveness testing methods as countermeasures to spoofing attacks on iris recognition, the most secure and reliable biometric technology available today.

The Liveness detection for iris recognition presentation was prepared for and presented at the NIST workshop on Biometrics and E-Authentication over Open Networks in Gaithersbury.