Tamperproof Transmission of Fingerprints Using Visual Cryptography Schemes

Visual Cryptography and biometrics have been identified as the two most important aspects of digital security. In this paper, we propose a method for the preparation and secure transmission of fingerprint images using visual cryptography scheme. Visual cryptography (VC) is a kind of secret image sharing scheme that uses the human visual system to perform the decryption computations. A visual cryptography scheme (VCS) allows confidential messages to be encrypted into k-out-of-n secret sharing schemes. Whenever the number of participants from the group (n) is larger than or equal to the predetermined threshold value (k), the confidential message can be obtained by these participants. VCS is interesting because decryption can be done with no prior knowledge of cryptography and can be performed without any cryptographic computations. In this paper, the fingerprint image is broken up into n pieces, which individually yield no information about the image. These pieces of the images, called shares or shadows, may then be distributed among a group of n participants/ dealers. By combining any k (k <= n) of these shares, the original fingerprint image can be recovered, but combining less than k of them will not reveal any information about the image. The scheme is perfectly secure and very easy to implement. To decode the encrypted information, i. e., to get the original information back, the shares are stacked and the secret image pops out. The only drawback of the VCS is the loss in contrast of reconstructed image. The proposed method for the reconstruction of fingerprint image is based on XNOR operation. This will enable one to obtain back perfect fingerprint image. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd c.