I527-290 ESRIF Final Report (WEB).indd - European Commission

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Currently, Belgium’s ID uses a PIN, and biometrics could be introduced with Match-on-Card. With such a system, any
third-party organization can ask the card for the identity of the cardholder using a simple Application Programming
Interface and reusing the tokens provided by the government. And registered traveller cards issued by an airport and
accepted by other airports throughout the world could benefit from a Match-on-Card based card that could be used for
check-in, security access, boarding and baggage control, as long as there is trust established between the issuing and
the accepting authority.
In the health care sector, which often involves both public and private partners, there is a growing trend towards issuing smart
cards to patients so they can enjoy more convenient and secure access to services. Security could be further improved by the
addition of Match-on-Card, ensuring that only those entitled to treatment receive it.
MOC can also be performed with multiple biometric traits, enlarging the potential application fi elds and scaling diff erent
strengths of the identifi cation systems.
8.3.1.2 Portable devices for identity verifi cation
Usage for proactive border control
The success of biometrics at border control will depend largely on the method of implementation. The face has been chosen
by the ICAO and EU as the primary biometric identifi er. But face recognition is currently one of the less accurate biometric
technologies. It suff ers from technical diffi culties with uncontrolled lighting and it therefore may be necessary to install the
face recognition readers in booths where lighting conditions are carefully controlled. Measures, such as this one, may lead to
improvements in accuracy but also to an increase in costs.
Multimodal systems are those which combine more than one biometric identifi er. As we already mentioned, it is currently
planned to use face and fi ngerprints in EU border control systems as EAC becomes more and more widely used. Research
initiatives have been launched on the application of multimodal biometrics in mobile communications (e.g. mobile telephones
and other devices). However researchers need more test data and there is still much work to be done.
How to manage certifi cates?
Managing certifi cates in a mobile environment is very complex. But it is very important to investigate the possible solutions
as most of the data stored in the electronic documents will soon require a certifi cate infrastructure to be read (with the
generalization of EAC). So we need to fi nd solutions to the following issues:
How to allow a constant access to the database of certifi cates with embedded devices
How to make diff erent public keys, issued by all Member States, available for all fi xed and/or mobile receivers in the whole
Schengen area
By what means does the software “know” what certifi cate to ask for from the server?
What are the means of conservation (even temporarily) of certifi cates in embedded devices?
Usage in situations of crisis
The challenge, in a situation of crisis, is to collect the maximum amount of data from victims as the set-up of victims’ lists is
essential to manage the rescue eff ort. The collection of information has to be done effi ciently even though a lot of victims may
be unconscious or shocked by the disaster and most of them will have lost their identity documents.
Therefore, it is crucial to use, not only alphanumerical data as is primarily the case today, but also data collected from all kind
of sensors, like biometric data (face, DNA, fi ngerprint or reader to assess (like mobile phones), as well. The system should then
be able to identify the victims using limited information from one or more of these sources.
A legal aspect of this challenge is also to create circumstance mechanisms that bypass privacy protection for the purpose of victim
identifi cation (it is not yet the case for post-mortem identifi cation, but is should also be the case for ante-mortem identifi cation).
The need for more resistant sensors/capture devices is also very important to be able to improve crisis management. Most of
the current portable devices are not resistant enough to be used in harsh conditions.
ESRIF FINAL REPORT - PART 2 • Working Group: Identifi cation of People and Assets