Hardening Fingerprint Fuzzy Vault Using Password

Security of stored templates is a critical issue in biometric systems because biometric templates are non-revocable. Fuzzy vault is a cryptographic framework that enables secure template storage by binding the template with a uniformly random key. Though the fuzzy vault framework has proven security properties, it does not provide privacy-enhancing features such as revocability and protection against cross-matching across different biometric systems. Furthermore, non-uniform nature of biometric data can decrease the vault security. To overcome these limitations, the authors propose a scheme for hardening a fingerprint minutiae-based fuzzy vault using password.