Patent ID: 7930552

Claim:
An intelligent encryption key apparatus, comprising: an acquisition unit for acquiring fingerprint information of a user; a processing unit for analyzing, estimating and processing the acquired fingerprint information, wherein the processing unit comprises a fingerprint information processing unit and an intelligent encryption key processing unit and the fingerprint information processing unit further comprises a digital signal processing module; a storage unit for storing required firmware, biometric information or algorithms; at least two Input/Output (I/O) units; an external storage unit for storing image processing software; a status indicator unit, comprising a single logic gate, a light emitting diode and a current limiting resistor; and a power supply unit, comprising a voltage regulation module and a diode; wherein, the processing unit is connected to the acquisition unit via one of the I/O units; the other I/O unit is used for connecting to a host via a Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface to communicate data; data is transmitted between the fingerprint information processing unit and the intelligent encryption key processing unit via a serial or parallel I/O interface; an input terminal of the single logic gate is connected to the digital signal processing module and an output terminal of the single logic gate is connected to the light emitting diode via the current limiting resistor, and wherein access from the host to protected data in the intelligent encryption key apparatus is allowed when a matching result of the acquired fingerprint information with pre-saved fingerprint information in the intelligent encryption key apparatus is positive, wherein the pre-saved fingerprint information is stored with a string of description of the pre-saved fingerprint for management and verification, the description includes at least a security status for indicating a necessary security status value at which the pre-saved fingerprint information can be used, and a switching status for indicating a security status value to which the intelligent encryption key apparatus should be switched if the pre-saved fingerprint information are verified positively.