4221 Biometric Recognition
FT, MSc Cyber-Security
6 ECTS, Lecture + Seminar
Link to the Course in ILIAS - TBA
Biometric recognition of individuals based on the observation of behavioural and biological characteristics, such as face, iris, or fingers is widespread in access control applications. Such methods can be used for verification or identification applications and constitute a comfortable alternative to knowledge based or token based methods.
This course begins with an overview of biometric applications and then covers selected biometric concepts, particularly fingerprint, face, and iris recognition. To this end, the relevant physiological characteristics, their variability, and potential problems are discussed before analysing different approaches for each of them. In each case, not only benign applications are covered but also potential bottlenecks such as insufficient sample quality and the impact on the processing chain. The use of multi-biometrics including data fusion is discussed both in the context of robustness to attacks and improving the overall accuracy of the recognition process. The course continues with a discussion of the ethical and privacy-related issues in biometrics, along with possible limitations and technical mitigation mechanisms. Special attention is given to privacy enhancing technologies that provide protection of sensitive biometric data.
In the seminar, students will implement and evaluate current application scenarios for biometric systems. Students will analyse, evaluate and discuss current challenges of biometric systems in order to find new solutions. To do this, they will research specialised literature and current publications.