STANDARDS FOR CERTIFY

BIOMETRIC ACCURACY 

November 2002 

R. Michael McCabe 

mccabe@nist.gov 

http://www.itl.nist.gov/iad/vip/ne
DEFINITIONS 

❐ Biometrics - Automated methods of 

person based on a physical or behavcharacteristics 

❐ Identification – One-to-many matchin

Is this person in the database? 

❐ Verification – One-to-one matching 

Is this person who (s)he claims to be
PATRIOT ACT 

ENHANCED BORDER SECU

& VISA REFORM ACT 

❐ PL 107-56: The Attorney General and the Secretar

through the National Institute of Standards and Techn

....shall within 1 year after the date of the enactmesection, develop and certify a technology standard appropriate biometric identifier standards) that can the identity of persons applying for a US visa or such to enter the US pursuant to a visa for the purposes of background checks, confirming identity, and ensuring 

not received a visa under a different name..... 

❐ PL 107-173:

 Not 

later than 180 days after the ena

Act, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), acting jsubmit to the appropriate committees of Congress a c

report assessing the actions that will be necessary... dequipment and software necessary to allow biometric authentication of documents...Not later than October 2
STATUTORY MANDAT

❐ Develop and certify a biometric technolo

● Verify identity of foreign nationals applying f

– Visa application at embassies and consulate

– Background check against FBI criminal datab

databases and “watch lists” 

– Ensure person has not received visa under a 

(consolidation) 

● Verify identity of persons seeking to enter th

– Verify that the person holding the travel docu

same person to whom the document was iss

– Airports, land border crossings, sea entry poi
NIST STATUTORY MANDA

❐ NIST must work together with Dept of Just

FBI & INS) and Dept of State to develop a activities and submit it to Congress under sthe Border Security Act. 

❐ NIST must determine estimates of the accu

different biometrics in the 303a report. 

❐ NIST must establish document authenticat

for tamper-resistant travel documents in th

❐ NIST must provide interoperability standard
TEST DATA SETS 

• Biometric accuracy determination requires u

scale databases for testing 

- sample size of 100 -1K Proves feasibility - sample size of 1K - 10K Measures subjec- sample size of 10K - 1M Measures operat

• Large realistic test samples of images have 

from the State and Justice Departments & T

• Initial testing will be of face and fingerprints• No large sample of iris data is presently ava

potentially a valuable technology that hafully tested. 
IMAGE TESTS 

• All tests conducted by NIST use image-bas• No face or fingerprint templates were used 

tests conducted. 

• Most vendors state that their products only 

their own proprietary templates are used. 
PERFORMANCE MEASUREME

❐ Identification: Algorithm Test Bed (A

● Scaled down version of FBI’s IAFIS at N● Test combinations of rolled and plain fin● Test use of less than ten finger images 

❐ Verification: Verification Test Bed (V

● Developed by the Image Processing Gr● Gigabit network of 16 nodes ● Test the use of single finger images 

❐ FRVT 2002 - Facial Recognition Ven
FINGERPRINT DATA SE

NAME SCAN TYPE PLAIN ROLL TESTS SIZE 

SD 14 (V2) Ink/live 10 Roll:Roll 2,700 CarSD 24 Live (DFR-90) 10 Plain:Plain 80 SD 29 Ink 10 10 Roll:Roll 

Plain:Plain Plain:Roll 

216 Card 

INS Live Index Plain:Plain 1M Pairs 

INS Live 10 10 Plain:Roll 100K Card

TX Ink/live 10 10 Plain:Roll 1M Cards ESD Live 10 10 Plain:Roll 3K Cards 
TENPRINT CARD 

(Rolled and Plain) 
 BIOMETRIC PERFORMAN

MEASUREMENT FRAMEW

(Cu

Recording Data 

Sets 

Gallery/Target 

P

Similarity Traditional

Matrix Measures V

(Rec

Biometric Algorithm/ System (known) 

Probes/Query 

Output from 

Participant 

Scores 

test 

(unknown) 

Input given to 

Participant 

Participant

 recognition 

System 
SIMILARITY MATRIX 

FP-1 FP-2 FP-3 

FP-1 95 87 54 

FP-2 90 97 78 FP-3 51 72 91 FP-4 67 43 29 
FINGERPRINT VERIFICAT

❐ This is a one to one match situation. ❐ Sample sizes need to be large enou

subject variation. 

❐ Used 60,000 operational quality fing

the INS. 

❐ Achieved 90% probability of verificat

false accepts. 

❐ Achieved 77% probability of verifica

0.01% false accepts 
ROC PLOT FOR 

FINGERPRINT VERIFICAT
FINGERPRINT 

IDENTIFICATION 

❐ This is a one to many match situation. ❐ Sample sizes need to be large enough t

large scale image quality variations. 

❐ Used 620,000 operational quality finger

INS 

❐ Achieved 96% probability of identificatio

on a gallery size of 500. 

❐ Achieved 90% probability of identificatio

on a gallery size of 10,000. 

❐ Achieved 86% probability of identificatio

on a gallery size of 100,000. 
FINGERPRINT PROBABILI

DETECTION vs GALLERY 
DEVELOPING 

STANDARDS 

❐ Biometric Standards Committee M1 Fo❐ ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37 Formed ❐ Data Interchange standards (ANSI/NIS

Fingerprint Standard 

● Minutiae ● Pattern ● Image 

Facial Standard 

● Image 

Iris 

● Image (Polar/Rectangular) 
STATUS OF NIST PATRIOT 

BIOMETRIC STANARD

❐ Previous work on fingerprint identity search

has shown that an acceptable identification obtained using four fingers in the FBI IAFIwith improved algorithms are being run at N

❐ Using realistic INS data, one index fingerpr

90% probability of verification with a 1% prfalse acceptance for identity verification. 

❐ Results from FRVT 2002 have yet to be co❐ Interoperability standards for data exchang

developed. 
STATUS OF NIST PATRIOT 

BIOMETRIC STANARDS (

❐ Not all subjects can be easily fingerprin

2%-3.5% have damaged friction ridges

❐ The intelligence community often only h❐ This indicates that a dual biometric syst

one or more fingerprint images and a faa chip may be needed to meet existing requirements.