Comparison of Classification Methods for Fingerprint Verification with Variable Numbers of Minutiae

The fingerprint verification task answers the question of whether or not two fingerprints belongs to the same finger. The paper focuses on the classification aspect of fingerprint verification. Classification is the third and final step after after the two earlier steps of feature extraction, where a known set of features (minutiae points) have been extracted from each fingerprint, and scoring, where a matcher has determined a degree of match between the two sets of features. Since this is a binary classification problem involving a single variable, the commonly used threshold method is related to the so-called receiver operating characteristics (ROC). In the ROC approach the optimal threshold on the score is determined so as to determine match or non-match. Such a method works well when there is a well-registered fingerprint image. On the other hand more sophisticated methods are needed when there exists a a partial imprint of a finger– as in the case of latent prints in forensics or due to limitations of the biometric device. In such situations it is useful to consider classification methods based on computing the likelihood ratio of match/non-match. Such methods are commonly used in some biometric and forensic domains such as speaker verification where there is a much higher degree of uncertainty. This paper compares the two approaches empiricially for the fingerprint classification task when the number of available minutiae are varied.