Fingerprint pore characteristics for liveness detection

In the search for viable fingerprint liveness detection techniques, one looks for unique characteristics that distinguish the friction ridge skin of a living finger from all other materials that could be made to imitate it. One such characteristic is the perspiration phenomenon, where small openings in the skin called pores, positioned periodically along the ridges, excrete sweat. These pores are often visible in images captured by a fingerprint scanner. This paper proposes an approach to fingerprint liveness detection, where pores are detected and a small region around each pore is analyzed to determine the perspiration activity. Results are presented using the LivDet 2011 and 2013 datasets, showing that the proposed approach is viable as a fingerprint liveness detection approach on its own and improves performance when combined with other liveness detection approaches.