Standards-Compliant Biometrics Software for the New e-passport

ICAOPack is a software development kit that provides conformance with the new ICAO LDS and authentication standards as well as ISO/IEC biometrics standards.

ICAOPack is a flexible API and utility set designed to read, write, validate and view standards-compliant biometric image and template data. ICAOPack ensures that data generated for storage can be read by other systems, or similarly, that a system can read the data from any standards-compliant passport. It enables rapid biometric system prototyping and development by eliminating the need to design in standards compliance from scratch.

ICAOPack provides comprehensive support for Extended Access Control (EAC), Basic Access Control (BAC), Passive Authentication, and Active Authentication.

Other Features:
ICAOPack includes JPEG2000, JPEG, and WSQ1000 software for compression and decompression of biometric images. as well as quality scoring for fingerprint images. This advanced algorithm generates a score for a fingerprint image to help operators use only fingerprint images that are useful.

Features and Functionality

• Supports multiple facial, finger images, finger minutiae, and iris data sets

• Provides CBEFF, ISO/IEC SC 37, ICAO LDS file packing, unpacking, and reformatting

• CBEFF, ISO/IEC SC 37, ICAO LDS file content verification

• Supports extended access control, basic access control, active authentication, and passive authentication

• Ensures file structure and integrity

• Includes WSQ1000, Aware JPEG2000, and JPEG compression engines

• Includes Aware Fingerprint Image Quality API
  

• Software development kit with example programs and documentation
  

• Easy to use and understand

• Programmable in C, C++, and Java
  
  

About the e-passport
The new ICAO “e-passport” brings the passport into the 21st century. It will include a contactless chip of at least 32 Kbytes of memory used to store biographic and biometric data and images. This data can then be instantly transferred in a contactless fashion to a passport reading system.

In order to achieve interoperability between all the passports and readers of the countries that use the e-passport, their manufacturers will rely on the implementation of international standards for compression and formatting of this biographic and biometric data. These standards are defined by ICAO, and will reference ISO/IEC SC 37 standards for biometrics.

ICAO has defined what they call the LDS or “logical data structure”, which identifies the fields where biographic and biometric data will be placed on the chip in the e-passport. For example, “Data Group 1” holds the biographic data we typically associate with a passport, such as name, nationality, and date of birth. “Data Group 2” holds the “global interchange feature”, a compressed facial image which will serve as the universal biometric. Datagroups 3 and 4 are intended for fingerprint and iris biometric images and data, respectively.

For each biometric sample, there is associated data that also must be stored, which enables the reader to properly identify and interpret the sample. It is vital to format this data correctly in order to achieve broad interoperability. For this purpose, ICAO will refer to biometrics standards being defined by ISO/IEC SC 37. These standards include biometric type-specific “data interchange formats” and the Common Biometric Exchange File Format, or CBEFF, which is a data “wrapper” for all biometric types. ISO/IEC SC 37 also defines what methods of compression are acceptable for the various biometric types.

To receive more information about Aware's Biometrics Products please contact us.