COST ACTION 275

BIOMETRICS-BASED RECOGNITION OF PEOPLE OVER THE INTERNET

Progress Report

June 2001-May 2002

Aladdin Ariyaeeinia

University of Hertfordshire, UK

OVERVIEW

• Action Identification Data

• Objectives

• Technical Description and Implementation

• Participation and Coordination

• Work and Progress

• Dissemination

IDENTIFICATION DATA

COST Action 275

Title: Biometrics-Based Recognition of People Over the Internet

 

TC Recommendation: 19/10/2000 CSO Approval: 15/12/2000

Start date: 08/06/2001 End date: 07/06/2005

Duration: 48 months

First MC meeting: 08/06/2001

IDENTIFICATION DATANumber of signatories: 13

Signatories and date of signature:

Italy 30/04/2001  Portugal 13/06/2001

United Kingdom 03/05/2001 Croatia 18/07/2001

France 03/05/2001 Greece 19/10/2001

Spain 03/05/2001 Sweden 12/12/2001

Ireland 08/05/2001 Switzerland 20/12/2001

Slovenia 08/05/2001 Poland 11/01/2002

Belgium 06/06/2001

Area: Multimedia and Internet Communications

Action Web site: http://www.fub.it/cost275

TC Rapporteur: Prof M. Dado, Slovakia

OBJECTIVES

Main objective:

to investigate effective methods for the recognition of people over the Internet based primarily on voice and facial characteristics in order to facilitate, protect and promote financial and other services over this growing telecommunication medium.

OBJECTIVES

In operational terms:

1. To improve knowledge of the issues and problems involved.

2. To study the current techniques for voice and face recognition and to evaluate their performance in the medium considered.

3. To investigate methods for the fusion of the considered biometric data.

4. To analyse the implementation problems and investigate effective solutions.

5. To identify the potential applications and analyse their requirements.

6. To develop standard methods and tools for the purpose of assessment.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

The activities are divided into four main areas.

1. Speaker Recognition

2. Face Recognition/ other image-based biometrics

3. Applications and Data Fusion

4. Assessment

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

• Overall activities: divided into three phases over four years.

• Technical structure: based on four working groups.

• Each working group is responsible for one of the main areas.

• The working groups have two meetings a year.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION

Progress Review:

conducted during the second, fifth and seventh meetings of the Management Committee/working groups.

Review Outcomes:

will be used to readjust the type and extent of activities within individual phases of operation if necessary.

Action Workshops:

These will also provide useful forums for the evaluation of the technical progress.

PARTICIPATION AND COORDINATION

• Management Committee: 23 members from 19 institutions

• Total number of participating institutions: 27

Meetings of MC/Working groups:

First meeting: 22-23/11/2001, Martigny, Switzerland

Second meeting: 25-26/04/2002, Paris, France

Meetings

Inaugural MC meeting: 08/06/2001, Brussels, Belgium

WORK & PROGRESS

• Technical Activities

• Investigations into the existing methods for • speaker verification• face recognition• fingerprint recognition

• Investigations into multimodal techniques

• Investigations into implementation issues:

• Data degradation resulting from transmission over IP.

• Implementation by avoiding the direct transmission of biometric data over the Internet.

• Server/client sites design analysis

WORK & PROGRESS

Focuses identified for the continuation of work

1. Factors adversely affecting the accuracy of verification on the Internet.

2. Extent of effects in (1).

3. Methods for minimising the adverse effects.

4. Assessment tools and procedures.

WORK & PROGRESS

Some projected activities:

1. Effects of speech/image compression.

2. Problems due to packet loss.

3. Effects of convolutional/additive noise.

4. Analysis/comparison of unimodal/multimodal systems.

5. Provision of a database

WORK & PROGRESS

Database

• Problem: absence of a suitable multimodal database collected over IP.

• Possible solution: appropriate degradation of an existing multimodal database.

• Database adopted: XM2VTS (high quality, multimodal).

• Agreements with XM2VTS partners:

1. The required subsets of XM2VTS will be made available to COST 275.

2. COST 275 is authorised to generate a degraded version of the database according to their requirements.

WORK & PROGRESS

Database

XM2VTS will be subjected to simulated degradation associated with:

• Additive noise.

• Convolutional noise.

• Compression.

• Packet loss

Result: a valuable resource for COST 275 and also for projects outside the Action

DISSEMINATION

1. Publications and Reports

• Minutes of the Inaugural meeting, Brussels, Belgium, 8/6/2001

• Minutes of the first MC meeting, Martigny, Switzerland, 22-23/11/2001

• Minutes of the second MC meeting, Paris, France, 25-26/4/2002

DISSEMINATION

2. Workshops

• The Action first workshop:

“The Advent of Biometrics on the Internet”

• Venue: FUB, Rome, Italy

• Dates: 7-8 November 2002

• Supported and publicised by: ISCA, IEE, …..

The Advent ofBiometrics on the

Internet

A COST 275 WORKSHOP 

Rome, Italy7-8 November 2002

 

DISSEMINATION

3. Website http://www.fub.it/cost275

• Intended to serve the dissemination purposes and to facilitate communications.

• Was set up in July 2001and regularly updated.

• Provides information on:

• Aims/objectives and working structure of the Action,

• Current/future events organised,

• Documents resulting from the activities,

• Members and contact details,

• Membership of working groups,

• Links to related sites.

DISSEMINATION

4. Scientific and Technical Cooperation

Project/Organisation Point of Contact

Actions 277 and 278 Gerard Chollet

XM2VTS (EU Project) Kieron Messer

BANCA (EU Project) Sebastien Marcel

MUHCI (EU Project) Ioannis Pitas

BIOMET (National Project, France) Sonia Salicetti

David Database (National Project, UK) John Mason

ELISA (European Speech Consortium) Ivan Chagnollean

SpLC (Int. Special Interest Group) John Mason

Cooperation/Publicity

1. Publicity pamphlet: Produced jointly with Actions 277 and 278.

2. “Expression of Interest” in the area of biometrics, based on a proposed “Network of Excellence” (BIOMET-NET): Prepared and submitted jointly with the BIOMET project and in collaboration with a number of other projects.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION 

COSTTelecommunications,

Information Science and Technology

 

  

Speech-Related COST Actions

 

COST 275COST 277COST 278