Patent ID: 6963659

Claim:
A one-to-many biometric verification system utilizing facial image comparisons to enhance the efficiency of a fingerprint verification analysis, the verification system comprising: a storage device containing a database of facial image templates and fingerprint templates acquired from a plurality of enrolled individuals, said database associating each facial image template with at least one corresponding fingerprint template acquired from the same enrolled individual; a camera for obtaining a newly acquired digital representation of a human facial image; a fingerprint sensor for obtaining a newly acquired digital representation of a human fingerprint; a processor associated with said storage device, camera, and fingerprint sensor; and software resident on said processor for comparing the newly acquired digital representation of a human facial image with the stored facial image templates, identifying a subset of more than one, but less than all, of said stored facial image templates that most closely match the newly acquired digital representation of a human facial image, then comparing the newly acquired digital representation of a human fingerprint with the fingerprint templates associated with said subset, and producing an output signal indicative of whether an enrolled individual is recognized; wherein the software is adapted to produce an output signal indicative of whether an enrolled individual is recognized without relying on a non-biometric discriminator to convert a one-to-many verification task to a one-to-one verification task; wherein the software is also adapted to recognize an enrolled individual solely from fingerprint comparisons if no facial image templates are stored in the database.