On the use of fingernail images as transient biometric identifiers

Abstract

The significant advantages that biometric recognition technologies offer are in danger of being left aside in everyday life due to concerns over the misuse of such data. The biometric data employed so far focuses on the permanence of the characteristics involved. A concept known as 'the right to be forgotten' is gaining momentum in international law and this should further hamper the adoption of permanent biometric recognition technologies. However, a multitude of common applications are short-term and therefore non-permanent biometric characteristics would suffice for them. In this paper we discuss 'transient biometrics' i.e. recognition via biometric characteristics that will change in the short term and show that images of the fingernail plate can be used as a transient biometric with a useful lifespan of less than six months. A direct approach is proposed that requires no training and a relevant evaluation dataset is made publicly available.

Areal roughness of the dorsal nail plate

“…Therefore, nail surface texture has been proposed as a means of identifying pathology occurring elsewhere in the body. This has led to numerous studies attempting to use nail imaging to identify health issues in patients, 1 although these methods are not yet common diagnostic measures. Many nail-specific diseases are characterized by color changes beneath the nail plate surface, which has been the focus of numerous image-based analyses, [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] including some studies that aimed to use the dermatoscope in a utilitarian way.…”

“…Many nail-specific diseases are characterized by color changes beneath the nail plate surface, which has been the focus of numerous image-based analyses, [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] including some studies that aimed to use the dermatoscope in a utilitarian way. 9 Barros Barbosa et al 1 analyzed images that were scaled to fingernail size and then pixelated, making the data scaled to body size. However, considering that the cellular processes of nail growth, both healthy and pathological, occur at cellular scales irrespective of the macroscopic size of the digit that they are part of, it may be better to measure disease states using scale uniformity, rather than scaling to body size.…”

“…9 Barros Barbosa et al . 1 analyzed images that were scaled to fingernail size and then pixelated, making the data scaled to body size. However, considering that the cellular processes of nail growth, both healthy and pathological, occur at cellular scales irrespective of the macroscopic size of the digit that they are part of, it may be better to measure disease states using scale uniformity, rather than scaling to body size.…”