Report - Guardian

The LSE Identity Project Report: June 2005 173- The ‘failure to acquire rate’ measures the proportion of attempts for which thesystem is unable to capture or locate an image of sufficient quality. While thefailure rate for face, hand, and vein remained at 0%, fingerprinting rose to 2.8%,and voice went up to 2.5%. Iris failure rate was 0%;- The ‘false match rate’ vs. ‘false non-match rate’ studies the comparison of acapture biometric against an enrolment template. By adjusting the decisioncriteria there can be a trade-off between false match and false non-match errors.The iris system had a pre-determined threshold, and had no false matches in over2 million cross-comparisons. Otherwise, matching failures arose due to poorquality images;- The ‘false acceptance rate’ vs. ‘false rejection rate’ measures the decision errorsfor the whole system;- The ‘multiple attempt error rates’ studied the effectiveness of repeated attemptsto use the system.A second study was conducted by one of the researchers at the NPL and another fromBTexact Technologies. This study was commissioned by the UK Passport Service, theDriver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, and the Home Office. 431 This time the researchwas geared towards the Government’s policy at the time, that of entitlement cards. Thebiometrics selected were fingerprints, iris and face image recognition. It measured theability to detect fraud in double-applications for a card, and the ability to verify in orderto confirm the use of the card by the correct individual.The purpose of the study was to test the feasibility and risks of the use of biometrics fora national identity scheme. Therefore biometrics that could not be stored in a centraldatabase for a one-to-many verification were not considered. That is, while handgeometry systems are less invasive and useful for verification with a template on a chip,it is not as relatively unique amongst a population of 50 million. Biometrics wereselected on the grounds that they could be used to ensure a unique identity against allother registrants, verifying biometrics on the card against the card holder, and checkingthe identity on the card against a watch-list of images.The main findings of the study were that:- “in principle, fingerprint or iris recognition can provide the identificationperformance required for unique identification over the entire UK adultpopulation. This would require, however, the enrolment and registration of atleast four fingers, or both irises. However, the practicalities of deploying eitheriris or fingerprint recognition in such a scheme are far from straightforward”;- Such a system would be a groundbreaking deployment for this kind of biometricapplication. “Not only would it be one of the largest deployments to date, butaspects of its performance would be far more demanding than those of similarlysized systems; such existing systems are either not applied in the civil sector, oroperate in countries where public acceptability issues are less prominent”;- Current biometric systems are not designed for this type of deployment;- Implementation by 2007 to limit identity fraud appears feasible, provided workcommences in early 2003;431 ‘Feasibility Study on the Use of Biometrics in an Entitlement Scheme’, for UKPS, DVLA, and the Home Office,by Tony Mansfield and Marek Rejman-Greene, February 2003.