Ross J. Micheals, PhD

Supervisory Computer Scientist

Information Access Division

Information Technology Lab
 Mission statement

◦ “to promote U.S. innovation and industrial 

competitiveness by advancing measurement 

science, standards and technology in ways that 

enhance economic security and improve our quality 

of life.”

 William Jeffrey, Former NIST Director

◦ “If you can‟t measure it—you can‟t control it. And if 

you can‟t control it—you can‟t reliably manufacture 

it. This is an old adage.”
 Measurement Science

◦ metrics, test design, evaluation methodologies, 

performance & conformance testing, data 

collection, data formatting

 Standards

◦ bring scientific expertise to collaborations with 

stakeholders & standards development 

organizations

 Technology

◦ algorithms, integration, and software
Government, Industry, and Academia

 Law Enforcement

◦ FBI: Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification 

System (IAFIS), Next Generation Identification (NGI)

 Border Security

◦ DHS: US-VISIT (biometric entry/exit for foreign visitors)

◦ USA PATRIOT Act, Enhanced Border Security & Visa Entry 

Reform Act

◦ Identity Management

◦ Defense & Intelligence

◦ Federal Coordination
 Identity Management

◦ Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12)

◦ Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards for Federal 

employees and contractors (FIPS 201)

 Defense & Intelligence Community

◦ Research & development

◦ Measuring the state-of-the-possible and pushing the 

state-of-the-art 

 Federal Coordination

◦ National Science & Technology Council (NSTC) 

Subcommittee on Biometrics and Identify Management 

(White House)
 Informal Collaborations

 Grants (grants.gov)

◦ “Grant Search”  “Search By Agency”  “Dept of Commerce”

 Contracts

 Cooperative Agreements

 Guest Researchers

 CRADA (Cooperative Research & Development 

Agreement)

 Facility Use Agreements

 Intellectual Property Licensing
 ICAO Approved Modalities for travel 

documents

◦ Fingerprints („flat‟, rolled and latents)

◦ Face

◦ Iris

 Other Modalities of Interest

◦ Voice

◦ DNA

◦ Gait*, Ear*

 Multimodal
 Despite existing efforts, building modern 

biometric applications (or clients) that are 

flexible with respect to changes in sensors, 

workflow, configuration, and responsiveness 

remains both difficult and costly

 public domain source code that may be leveraged 

to develop the next-generation of biometric and 

personal identity verification applications

 Customers: Government (FBI), industry 

(integrators), academia (WVU, Clarkson, Purdue)
 “The extent to which a product can be used 

by specified users to achieve specified goals 

with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction 

in a specified context of use." ISO 9241-

11:1998

 Studies include

◦ Fingerprint scanner positioning

◦ How different instructions effect usability

◦ Accessibility for the visually impaired

◦ Symbology & iconography for biometric systems
 Proprietary Fingerprint Template Testing (PFT)

 Evaluation of Latent Fingerprint Technologies 

(ELFT)

 Revocability & Liveness Testing (planning)

 Minutia Exchange Test (MinEx)

◦ MinEx 04: INCITS 378 interoperability

◦ Ongoing MinEx: Measure interoperability levels for 

potential PIV compliance

◦ MinEx II: Match-on-card template interoperability

 “Slap” Segementation Tests

◦ Performance evaluation of segmentation algorithms (2 

inch „card‟ slaps and 3 inch livescan slaps)
 Face Recognition Grand Challenge

◦ 2005

◦ Particularly “difficult” datasets

 Face Recognition Vendor Test

◦ Performance on operational data

◦ 2000, 2002, 2006
 ICE (Iris Challenge Evaluation)

◦ “Challenge” datasets for iris algorithms

 IREX (Iris Exchange Test)

◦ Measure the effect of image compression and 

alternative image formats (polar representations 

specifically)
 ANSI/NIST Standards

◦ ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007

Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial & 

Other Biometric Information Part 1

◦ ANSI/NIST-ITL 2-2008

XML Counterpart to ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007

 National Standards

◦ International Committee for Information Technology 

Standards (INCITS M1)

 International Standards

◦ International Organization for Standardization / 

International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC 

SC37)
 Large-Scale USG Systems (FBI IAFIS/NGI, DHS 

US-VISIT IDENT)

◦ Benchmarking & interoperability evaluations

◦ Next-generation biometrics capabilities & 

integration of standards

 Biometric Quality

◦ Standard methodologies for evaluating, calibrating, 

and comparing image quality metrics

 MBGC: Multiple Biometric Grand Challenge

◦ Challenge evaluation of face & iris video
 MBARK

◦ http://mbark.nist.gov

 Biometrics Usability

◦ http://zing.ncsl.nist.gov/biousa/
 IAD Image Group

◦ http://biometrics.nist.gov

 Fingerprint Projects

◦ http://fingerprint.nist.gov

 Face Recognition Projects

◦ http://face.nist.gov

 Iris Projects

◦ http://iris.nist.gov