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Fingerprint verification based on minutiae features: a review

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Abstract

Fingerprints have been an invaluable tool for law enforcement and forensics for over a century, motivating research into automated fingerprint-based identification in the early 1960s. More recently, fingerprints have found an application in biometric systems. Biometrics is the automatic identification of an individual based on physiological or behavioural characteristics. Due to its security-related applications and the current world political climate, biometrics is presently the subject of intense research by private and academic institutions. Fingerprints are emerging as the most common and trusted biometric for personal identification. The main objective of this paper is to review the extensive research that has been done on automated fingerprint matching over the last four decades. In particular, the focus is on minutiae-based algorithms. Minutiae features contain most of a fingerprint’s individuality, and are consequently the most important fingerprint feature for verification systems. Minutiae extraction, matching algorithms, and verification performance are discussed in detail, with open problems and future directions identified.

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Notes

  1. In Australia, the first official fingerprint branch was opened in 1903.

  2. The database maintained by Australian law enforcement agencies contains around 2.1 million prints.

  3. Australian law enforcement agencies also acquire palm prints from offenders. Palms are covered by the same type of skin as finger tips, and can therefore be used for identification as well

  4. Australian police are in the process of updating their facilities to make high-end live-scan units available at most major police branches around the country.

  5. In our case, we assume the images are the same resolution and consider only translation and rotation, but Ratha et al. also consider scaling.

  6. Australian police use an AFIS developed by SAGEM

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Sergeant Russell Plummer of the New South Wales Police’s Criminal Identification Specialist Support Branch for valuable information and a fascinating discussion on the use of latent fingerprints for criminal investigations in Australia. Furthermore, we thank the anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions.

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  1. School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, 2052, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Neil Yager & Adnan Amin

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  1. Neil Yager
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Correspondence to Neil Yager.

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Yager, N., Amin, A. Fingerprint verification based on minutiae features: a review. Pattern Anal Applic 7, 94–113 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10044-003-0201-2

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