  DNA fingerprinting is a cornerstone for human identification in forensics,
where the sequence of highly polymorphic short tandem repeats (STRs) from an
individual is compared against a DNA database. This presents significant
privacy risks to individuals with DNA profiles in the database due to hacking
by malicious attackers who may access the data and misuse it for secondary
purposes. In this paper, we propose a novel cryptographic framework for jointly
encrypting DNA-based fingerprints (STRs) with other biometric data, for
example, facial images, such that the STRs and biometrics information of an
individual are revealed only when a positive match is found, i.e. the STRs act
as decryption keys. Specifically, when a search is performed on the encrypted
database using STR sequences of an individual in the database, a perfect match
generates the facial image and/ or other biometrics of the individual while the
lack of a match returns a null result. By jointly encrypting DNA fingerprints
and other biometrics using the unique STRs generated keys, our approach ensures
perfect privacy of the encrypted information with decryption of only the record
with STRs matching the query. This safeguards the information of other
individuals in the same database. The proposed approach can also be used to
securely authenticate the identity of individuals or biological material in
scenarios beyond forensics including tracking the identity of samples for
clinical genetics and cell therapies.
