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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: EP/C00793X/1
Title: Template-free biometric encryption for data integrity assurance
Principal Investigator: Howells, Professor G
Other Investigators:
Deravi, Professor F Fairhurst, Professor MC
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Dectel Security Limited
Department: Sch of Engineering & Digital Arts
Organisation: University of Kent
Scheme: Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts: 01 October 2005 Ends: 30 September 2008 Value (£): 268,897
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Image & Vision Computing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Communications
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Data encryption is a fundamental tool for the protection of electronically-mediated data, yet encryption itself cannot necessarily protect against fraudulent data manipulation when the security of encryption keys cannot be absolutely guaranteed. This proposal describes an exciting new approach to template-free encoding which exploits the potential of biometric identity information to authenticate activation of the encryption process. Our proposal seeks to integrate biometric security and authentication techniques within generic document models in such a way as to maximise their security potential. Biometric technologies attempt to automate the measurement and comparison of physiological or behavioural characteristics for identifying individualsThe primary aim of this project is to investigate and develop novel methods for improving document security via the generation of encryption keys directly from biometrically based data. This will serve to increase confidence and trust in the integrity of sensitive data both to their producers and users. While encryption technologies can effectively spread security, by themselves they cannot guarantee the security of the identity of the originator of the data. Biometric technologies allow for security to be introduced at document origination and document retrieval.Such a system will possess the following significant advantages:-The removal of the need to store any form of template for validating the user, hence directly addressing the disadvantages iterated above.The security of the system will hence be as strong as the biometric and encryption algorithm employed (there is no back door). The only mechanisms to gain subsequent access are to provide another sample of the biometric or to break the cipher employed by the encryption technology.The (unlikely) compromise of a system does not release sensitive biometric template data which would allow unauthorised access to other systems protected by the same biometric or indeed any system protected by any other biometric templates present.A further significant advantage relates to the asymmetric encryption system associated with the proposed technique. Traditional systems require that the private key for decrypting data be stored in some way (memorising a private key is not feasible). With the proposed system, the key will be uniquely associated with the given biometric sample and a further biometric sample will be required to generate the required private key. As there is no physical record of the key, it is not possible to compromise the security of sensitive data via unauthorised access to the key.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Summary
Date Materialised
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Further Information:  
Organisation Website: http://www.kent.ac.uk