Patent ID: 7697737

Claim:
A method for providing a fingerprint enabled wireless add-on for personal identification number (PIN) accessible smartcards, comprising: powering up a biometric personal identity verification (BioPIV) system, the BioPIV system containing a biometric reader and a holder for a PIV smartcard, wherein the BioPIV system is powered up by receiving a biometric reading from the biometric reader; extracting a card holder unique identification (CHUID) for the PIV smartcard; searching for a secure domain in an internal memory of the BioPIV system using the CHUID as an index, wherein the internal memory is contained within the BioPIV and is co-located with the holder and the biometric reader; if a secure domain is found, validating a signature of the CHUID using data from the secure domain, wherein the secure domain provides a PIN associated with PIV smartcard, a reference biometric, and a reference hash; comparing the biometric provided by the biometric reader with the reference biometric stored in the secure domain; and if the biometric provided by the biometric reader matches the reference biometric, activating the BioPIV system.