Trusted biometric validation of individual identities has never been more important. Several contributing factors are the increase in global terrorism, identity theft and the increase in legislation which are driving the accelerated adoption of biometric technology. Unfortunately, the biometrics industry has not actively responded to the changing market conditions being driven by the explosion in mobile computing. These new mobile devices are rapidly replacing traditional desktop and laptops in both commercial and public sector organizations. This project seeks to explore the development of new wireless biometric sensors that deliver biometric data over secure web services. We propose to implement a fully functional wireless biometric fingerprint sensor by starting with an existing microcomputer platform. Although our end goal will be the development of a fully operational prototype device, we primarily aim to understand technical challenges and limitations of implementing the complex embedded web service specified by NIST while also exploring new state of the art secure System on Chips (SoCs) for future commercial development efforts. Commercial Applications: The mobile computing revolution and the nearly complete lack of biometric sensor technology that can be used or accessed by such devices today has created an opportunity to develop a totally new breed of portable, wireless secure biometric sensors. The commercial potential for this research is very large and it is immediately viable. The opportunity cuts across both private and public sectors with both sectors clearly experiencing rapidly growing demand. Examples of vertical markets (domestic and international) that can immediately take advantage of this technology if developed are: Law Enforcement, Military, eGovernment, Workforce Management, Mobile Banking/Micro Finance, and Mobile Health. As the trend towards adoption of totally mobile, always connected computing devices continues, nearly all of the biometric sensor devices that have been deployed to date will face obsolescence. A new breed of secure wireless biometric sensor device free from the traditional headaches associated with software drivers and complicated installation/configuration will further accelerate the inevitable demise of the old USB tethered sensor paradigm.
