Plastic fingers or other artificial imitations can be used to make fingerprint
bypass systems. There are already many cases in which unauthorized persons have gained access to smartphones, databases or other protected areas in this way. Many counterfeiters take a similar approach: The fingerprint of a real person is copied from plastic or other materials. With this copy, fraudsters can fool fingerprint-based systems and assume false identities.
Many companies and also end users are usually not even aware of the danger. Nor do they know anything about possible preventive measures or solutions that avoid this type of fraud. So what can be done against these fraud attempts?
The answer is provided by a technology called Presentation Attack Detection (PAD), which is also known as life detection. PAD uses hardware or software to detect whether a real or a fake finger is placed on a scanner.
The biennial LivDet Competition, hosted by the Italian University in Cagliari since 2009, tests and compares various life detection software solutions. This year, a total of 23 companies and academic institutions submitted their solutions to LivDet.
With the highest accuracy in detecting forged fingerprints, Dermalog again topped the overall rankings this year. In addition, the Hamburg-based company took second place with two different algorithms for life detection as well as first.
"Presentation attack detection is now an essential part of all fingerprinting systems to prevent fraud and identity theft. We are very proud to have been a leader in this technology for many years", says Dermalog managing director Günther Mull.
Dermalog is the largest German manufacturer of biometric identification systems with 250 large-scale installations in more than 100 countries. The company also offers hardware and software for multibiometric solutions that combine different biometric features such as fingerprints, face and iris.
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