Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005.

The need for a more secure cyber future is apparent in the information age that we live in. Information is fast becoming, and already is, one of the biggest assets in all domains of life. Access to information and specifically personal information must be regulated and secured in a trusted way. The use of passwords and tokens (example: bank card) that’s currently the most popular and well known mechanism for electronic identification can only identify the password or token but NOT the physical user using the password or token for identification. Biometrics addresses the above issue by being part of the physical user. For example: your fingerprint, retina or iris. Current biometric technologies provide an enabling medium to help with more accurate identification and verification. Thereby protecting and securing electronic information…BUT: One of the biggest problem areas surrounding biometrics is the fact that most biometric tokens (fingerprints, hand geometry and the human eye) can be used in some cases to identify the owner of the biometric token even after death as if the owner was still alive. The problem becomes apparent in the case of a person that passed away and the possibility of using the biometric tokens of the deceased to obtain access to his/her bank account. Therefore the importance of effective liveness testing is highlighted. Current liveness testing technologies can not be trusted in a way that would be necessary to provide the trust needed in the example of access to a personal bank account at an ATM (automatic teller machine). This dissertation reports on the initial stages of a research project that addresses the above problem by proposing the use of biometric tokens that doesn’t exist if the owner is not alive, thus the dissertation coins the new term – Inherent Liveness Biometrics. The way the human heart beats as a biometric token to identify or verify a person, might solve the issue of liveness testing, because “The way the human heart beats” might prove to be a natural biometric token that is only valid for a living person, thus an inherent liveness biometric. / Prof. S.H. Von Solms

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