BIOSIG 2017

Ciaran Carolan - Keynote Speaker

eu-LISA

Biometrics, interoperability and large-scale IT systems: the Future of EU Smart Borders

Abstract

Border management procedures worldwide are increasingly reliant on technologies and digital systems. European authorities involved in policy formulation for border control have increasingly looked to IT solutions as they seek appropriate means to deal with increasing flows of travellers at the external borders of the Schengen Area while striving to render border checks more efficient and effective. As part of the European Commission’s Smart Borders program, two new large-scale IT systems have been proposed for development. The European Entry Exit System (EES) aims to facilitate secure border passage through the use of biometrics and self-service technologies. The European Travel Information Authorisation System (ETIAS), meanwhile, will allow collection of data for risk assessment in advance of travel. The new systems complement those already in place, with interoperability between systems to improve service efficiency and the effectiveness of system usage a relatively new area of interest.

The latest developments in the expansion of IT systems at European borders will be described in the presentation. Updates will be provided on eu-LISA-led studies on system development and interoperability concepts. The information will provide the basis for a depiction of the future of IT-led border management encompassing advance passenger authorization as well as checks at borders and involving a variety of actors including border guards, customs authorities, consular authorities, travel agents and carriers and of course travellers.

CV

Dr. Ciaran Carolan

As Research and Development Officer at eu-LISA, Mr. Carolan works at the interface of policy, innovation and technological evolution. His principle role at the Agency involves the monitoring of technological developments in order to ensure that its systems are continuously developed in line with advancements in the field. He is also strongly involved in technical and operational projects in which the evolution of systems to better meet end user needs and the implementation of new systems are considered. As a Member of the Agency’s External Affairs and Capacity Building Sector, outreach, collaboration and Agency representation at technical and policy meetings are important tasks fulfilled.

Mr Carolan currently chairs eu-LISA’s internal Task Force on Interoperability, coordinating the Agency’s involvement in and input to the European High Level Expert Group on Information Systems and Interoperability and its subgroups examining current system evolution, development of new large-scale IT systems and systems interoperability. He is also involved in several technical working groups in the Justice and Home Affairs domain.

Mr. Carolan has B.Sc and PhD qualifications from Trinity College Dublin. Prior to joining eu-LISA, he worked on software design and development as well as IT system administration at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg, Germany.

Yoshinori Koda

NEC Corporation, JP

Fingerprinting young newborns - from sensor design to application challenges

Abstract

The use of the technology for identification has recently expanded due to several innovations in the field. One such expansion is the use of biometrics to create a national ID system as a HUB for several social services. Such a system would be mainly used for history management of issuing social welfare services for citizens, especially for adults. However, additional requirements requested involve development of the ability to register children into the citizenship database. A biometric technology solution makes identification possible because it does not require any input from the child.

NEC, a biometric technology pioneer, assigned a technical project team to develop an accurate child print capturing method without the limits prescribed by the various international standards and specifications. This project is in line with the company’s corporate philosophy of providing innovative solutions for society’s most challenging problems. The purpose of this research is to explain the feasibility of NEC’s new device with biometric technology and the results from onsite research.

CV

Yoshinori Koda is a principal researcher at NEC Corporation and is responsible for new business development and marketing. He has more than 15 years experiences in various kinds of biometric project including large scale AFIS for National ID systems. He visited many countries including developing countries during his AFIS project assignment and these experiences made his belief of "Biometric technology can improve the social life of children in developing countries" more strong. His research interest are "Study of Child-fingerprint identification technology, including hardware design" and "Development of child-fingerprint identification in to a large scale fingerprint identification system and its evaluation in field trials".

He earned his master degree in business administration (MBA) from Waseda University, Japan.

Mark Nixon

University of Southampton, U.K.

Soft Biometrics: Identification by Face, Body and Clothing

Abstract

Soft Biometrics are the estimation or use of personal characteristics describable by humans that can be used to aid or effect person recognition. Soft biometrics are also attributes that are typically gleaned from primary biometric data which are classifiable in pre-defined human understandable categories and can be extracted in an automated manner. These attributes can contribute to recognition or can be estimated separately and this helps to improve or refine biometric systems operation. This leads to soft biometrics which can be used to reinforce conventional biometrics and which can be estimated separately, say to increase biometrics deployment capability. Alternatively, fine grained attributes can be deployed as measures used for identification. Humans can describe the body, the clothing and the face for recognition and, equally, these descriptions can be estimated by computer vision. The new approach is akin with automated eyewitness identification, using information derived by human and automated processes. We therefore have a new approach to identifying humans by using attributes that can be described by people or by automated vision. We are then well on the way to provide a new way for automated identification from surveillance video which is a capability much needed in modern society.

CV

Mark Nixon is the Professor in Computer Vision at the University of Southampton UK. His research interests are in image processing and computer vision. His team develops new techniques for static and moving shape extraction which have found application in automatic face and automatic gait recognition and in medical image analysis. His team were early workers in face recognition, later came to pioneer gait recognition and more recently joined the pioneers of ear and soft biometrics. His vision textbook, with Alberto Aguado, Feature Extraction and Image Processing (Academic Press) reached 3rd Edition in 2012 and has become a standard text in computer vision. With Tieniu Tan and Rama Chellappa, their book Human ID based on Gait is part of the Springer Series on Biometrics and was published in 2005. He has chaired/ program chaired many conferences and given many invited talks. Mark is a member of IAPR TC4 Biometrics and of the IEEE Biometrics Council. He is a Fellow IET and FIAPR and the Distinguished Fellow of the BMVA 2015.