1

Dr. Yau Wei Yun1 & Ms. Koh Ting Ting2

Institute for Infocomm Research, Singapore1

Ministry of Home Affairs2

Singapore's Automated Clearance using Biometrics

Meant for better border control & counter-terrorism. But need to consider….

Cost -> affordable by majority. Usefulness -> widely accepted, multi-application. Convenience -> speed, privacy protection . Security -> impersonation, illegal migration, attack etc.

Biometric Passports

2

Vision: Seamless Travel

Internet Experience: Acquire visa online.Integration with airlines, Boarding Pass and immigration clearances.Downstream integration as a tourist card with e-booking, e-voucher, hotels, car rental, entry to attractions, electronic payments etc.Promote travel

Green LanesSeveral countries contemplating trials using SPT concept termed ‘Green Lane’ (VIP Gate). Evaluate user acceptance of providing biometrics in exchange for speedier clearance.

Voluntary biometric passport add-ons. Legally simple.Winning public support.Auto-graduation to e-passport.

“Green Lanes”:Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport (USA)Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester, Birmingham (UK)Charles de Gaulle, Orly Airports (France)Fraport (Frankfurt, Germany)Umea Airport (Sweden)Shipol Airport/Privium(Netherlands)Narita (Japan) + Incheon (Korea) e-Airport

3

Singapore: Smart VIP

Merger of physical people security & border control with virtual electronic security.Treated as supplementary e-document, considering:

smart airport, airline boarding pass, airline security.health emergencies.electronic citizen identification, regional identification.Biometric passport, immigration and electronic VISA.

cost and implementation, value-added activities.high security and privacy.

Singapore: VIP-GateAn application for Smart VIP in Singapore ChangiAirport

launching a VIP-Gate trial in Departure Hall, Terminal 2Target launch date is 1 Oct 2004

Facial recognition and Fingerprinting authentication One-to-one local matchingConsidering on-card fingerprint matchingOne-time pre-enrolment is necessary

A dedicated lane for passengers for immigration clearanceAbout 9000 SVIP cards will be issued in the trial

FOC for trial participants, to be issued by Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) of Singapore.

4

VIP-Gate

VIP-Gate Enrolment

Trial participants to do one-time enrolment at ICA Access Card Center in Changi Airport where thumbprint and facial features are captured + other info.Enrolment is expected to take 10-15 minutes Participants issued with Smart VIP card after enrolment is completed

5

VIPGate-Facial Recognition & Fingerprint Verification

Passenger

1st Gate always open

Step 1:1st Gate will close upon detection of contactless card (Contactless card and finger print reader)

Step 2:The gate will perform the card authentication.

Step 3:Put his finger on reader and look into the camera.Passenger facial and finger print are captured and matched.

Step 5:The 2nd Gate will open to let the passenger through.

Step 4:When successfully authenticated, passenger can proceed to select seat and obtain the printed boarding pass.

Facial Biometrics: mandatory

Issues:Compatibility with other cards: Seafarer’s ID, EU card etc.Fusion with other biometrics.Evaluating live subject detectorCan we add 3D facial verification (now or later)?

6

Current Status: Fingerprint Biometrics

Working on fingerprint sensor/image capture normalisation issues, hardware compatibility issues etc.Did 3 sets of fingerprint biometric testing at Changi airport and MHA.

Fingerprint Trial – Fast FactsFingerprint Verification Trial @ Changi Staff Apron Entrance

2 days, each lasts for 10 hours

Total participants : 1165

More than 90% are male participants

Mostly between 35 - 50 years of age

Majority are engineers, technicians, cargo handlers, cleaners from SIA company and its affiliated companies.

Objectives: test ruggedness of sensor, discover bad fingers, dry and wet cases and speed, accuracy and enrolment challenges.

7

Fingerprint Trial – Lessons Learnt

Fingerprint Quality

Bad fingerprint of the index fingers (we only collected index finger)

Dirty hand, as they are technicians and workers from the cargo.

Some have seriously damaged fingerprint.

Some pressed too hard on the sensor (even after guiding them not to).

Enrollment

Enroll one time only; may have poor image quality not suitable for enrolment => more attempts and false rejection rate can be reduced significantly

Local Terminal(PC/PDA/

Handphone)

Smart Card FingerprintSensor

Fingerprinttemplate

Results

FingerprintMatching

Owner'sFingerprintTemplates

Transactionapplet Etc.

Firewall

Implemented on Java Card

Coding Results

Requires only 500b RAM & 6Kb footprint.Achieved 2sec on Sharp’s Java card (16bit)

ON-CARD MATCHING

8

Working on defining standards optimised for smart card strong biometrics, namely fingerprint and iris verification; i.e. on the interchange of very compressed fingerprint template via DIN V66400/ISO (about 161 bytes) and IrisKey (about 230 bytes). Presently, we are at 360 bytes Fingerprint On-Card Matching.

Interoperability Work

Security Vulnerabilities

Security mechanism:

On-card matching to prevent eavesdropping, remote skimming of contactless card. Secure authenticationKey diversification, secure messaging and anti transaction tearing to prevent substitution attack.Linking e-passport with e-visa

9

Conclusion

“Singapore desires to do a strong, meaningful and highly secure biometrics passport and yet support global interoperability.”Many standard issues (including biometrics) still need to be refined for inter-operability. Singapore is doing its best to contribute.