Biometric Specifications for Personal Identity Verification
NIST Special Publication 800-76-2
July 2013
Additions in this version:
- On-card comparison of fingerprints for improved privacy.
- Iris recognition capability for increased security: The document provides performance specifications for iris biometrics to assure high accuracy and provides specifications for iris cameras to guide implementers on camera selection.
* Abstract
Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-12, Policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractors [HSPD-12], called for Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-12, Policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractors [HSPD-12], called for new standards to be adopted governing interoperable use of identity credentials to allow physical and logical access to Federal government locations and systems. The Personal Identity Verification (PIV) standard for Federal Employees and Contractors, Federal Information Processing Standard Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors (FIPS 201), was developed to define procedures and specifications for issuance and use of an interoperable identity credential. This document, Special Publication 800-76 (SP 800-76), is a companion document to FIPS 201. It describes technical acquisition and formatting specifications for the PIV system, including the PIV Card itself. It also establishes minimum accuracy specifications for deployed biometric authentication processes. The approach is to enumerate procedures and formats for collection and preparation of fingerprint, iris and facial data, and to restrict values and practices included generically in published biometric standards. The primary design objective behind these particular specifications is to enable high performance and universal interoperability. The introduction of iris and face specifications into the current edition adds alternative modalities for biometric authentication and extends coverage to persons for whom fingerprinting is problematic. The addition of on-card comparison offers an alternative to PIN-mediated card activation as well as an additional authentication method.
Executive Symmary
* Scope: Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, Policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractors [HSPD-12], called for new standards to be adopted governing interoperable use of identity credentials to allow physical and logical access to Federal government locations and systems. The Personal Identity Verification (PIV) standard for Federal Employees and Contractors, Federal Information Processing Standard 201, Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors (FIPS 201), was developed to define procedures and specifications for issuance and use of an interoperable identity credential. This document, Special Publication 800-76 (SP 800-76), is a companion document to FIPS 201. It describes technical acquisition and formatting specifications for the PIV system, including the PIV Card1 itself. It also establishes minimum accuracy specifications for deployed biometric authentication processes.
* Approach: The approach is to enumerate procedures and formats for collection and preparation of fingerprint, iris and facial data, and to restrict values and practices included generically in published biometric standards. The primary design objective behind these particular specifications is to enable high performance and universal interoperability. The introduction of iris and face specifications into the current edition adds additional modalities for biometric authentication and extends coverage to persons for whom fingerprinting is problematic. The addition of on-card biometric comparison offers an alternative to PIN-mediated card activation as well as an additional authentication method. For the preparation of biometric data suitable for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background check, SP 800-76 references the ANSI/NIST Fingerprint Standard [AN2011] and the FBI's Electronic Biometric Transmission Specification [EBTS].
* Domain of use: Recognizing that PIV specifications are sometimes leveraged in other identity management applications, it should be noted that derivative programs should adopt these PIV-specifications with appropriate deliberative technical augmentation. The biometric data elements contained in this standard are suitable for one-to-one verification of document holders when other application-specific factors are maintained. But, for example, if the fingerprint templates mandated here are used in conjunction with fingerprints captured on non-PIV compliant fingerprint sensors, there may be systematic degradations in recognition accuracy. Similarly, while it would be appropriate to take the compressed iris specification defined here for use on a nation state's e-Passports2, it would be technically suboptimal to then copy those iris images to be the enrollment samples of an expedited traveler program running in one-to-many single-factor mode (i.e., the mode of [NEXUS,UKIRIS]).
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Robin Cover
OASIS, Director of Information Services
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