Study of possibility of on-pen matching for biometric handwriting verification

In this article the possibility of a biometric on-pen matching for dynamic handwriting-based user authentication is proposed. The approach is based on a digitizer pen originally designed to sample handwritten notes. In a first step the general ability with respect to recognition accuracy is studied to use the digitizer pen (also de-noted as smart pen) for biometric dynamic handwriting acquisition. The evaluation show that the digitizer pen results in similar outcomes as special online signature tablets regarding the chosen measurement, the equal error rate (EER). The second step considers a conceptional study of embedding an authentication algorithm within smart cards, which could be integrated into the pen hardware, thus allowing for on-card matching. In this second analysis, the focus is to study the feasibility of implementing a reference verification algorithm on-card with respect to its computational complexity. The suggested approach will further allow future authentication scenarios, whereby biometrics, secret knowledge and personal possession can be combined. While the possession aspect is maintained due to the fact that the entire authentication system is integrated in the smart pen and remains in ownership of users, the factor of secret knowledge can be integrated by alternative handwritten contents such as personal identification numbers, generally called semantics.