Cancelable Biometrics: A review

Recent years have seen an exponential growth in the use of various biometric technologies for trusted automatic recognition of humans. With the rapid adaptation of biometric systems, there is a growing concern that biometric technologies may compromise the privacy and anonymity of individuals. Unlike credit cards and passwords, which can be revoked and reissued when compromised, biometrics are permanently associated with a user and cannot be replaced. To prevent the theft of biometric patterns, it is desirable to modify them through revocable and noninvertible transformations to produce cancelable biometric templates. In this article, we provide an overview of various cancelable biometric schemes for biometric template protection. We discuss the merits and drawbacks of available cancelable biometric systems and identify promising avenues of research in this rapidly evolving field.