Liveness and Spoofing in Fingerprint Identification: Issues and Challenges

The fingerprint liveness detection refers to the inspection of the finger characteristics to ensure whether the input finger is live or artificial. A number of fingerprint identification systems are used widely and implemented at various important places such as border and immigration services. However, it is not declared by the manufacturers of these systems whether liveness detection is actually implemented. Possible measures to detect liveness are only proposed in patents and published literature. There are three major schemes, which are reported in fingerprint liveness literature. These coupled with the additional hardware, software, or combination of fingerprint with other identifications is aimed to verify the liveness in submitted fingerprints. The hardware-based methods use auxiliary sensors to detect the biological and physiological measurements from finger, whereas software-based methods utilize changes in physical properties that take place in early stages of pressing the finger. In this paper, various fingerprint liveness detection methods, which are categorized as voluntary and involuntary, are explored. These categories are based on determining the presence of a user by different responses from either voluntary (e.g. passwords or multiple biometrics) or involuntary (e.g. pulse oximetry or blood pressure) liveness detections. The main objective of this paper is to critically review the voluntary and involuntary fingerprint liveness detection techniques proposed in the literature, and discuss their effectiveness and possible limitations. Key-Words: Liveness Detection, Spoofing, Fingerprint, Biometric Security, Voluntary and Involuntary Technique