Design of Portable and Sustainable user Authentication System using Intrinsic Mobile Phone Biometric in Smart City Environment

 

Syed Imtiyaz Hassan*

 

ABSTRACT:

Administrators and parents are always concerned about the student’s attendance as the short attendances affects student’s overall academic performance. The conventional method of taking attendance by calling names or signing on paper is very time consuming and prone to proxies. The latest smart phones with built-in finger print scanner can be used to mark the attendance. It can provide the accuracy equal to the biometrics based attendance system. The proposed system is an attempt to use biometric attendance using the built in biometric of smart phone. It can be used to efficiently take attendance for student in schools, colleges, and universities. It can also be used to take the attendance of the employees in working places. The system validates the authentication of the user by comparing the fingerprints of a user and comparing the geo location coordinates of the user with the coordinates of the class room stored in the master table. Its ability to uniquely identify each person based on their scanned finger prints make it more sustainable and portable. A key is assigned in a hexadecimal format by the smart devices and make the process of taking the attendance easier and that too in mass, faster and secure as compared to conventional method. Students or employees only need to register one time on the system and save the information such as the user name, finger prints key and IMEI number in the database. The proposed system may be used more conveniently in smart city environment where we can use different Internet of Things (IoTs) such as WiFi, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), smart phone sensors for geo fencing and tracking.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

It is becoming necessary to make cities smarter and safer due to unstoppable growth in city population. The ICT is a key enabler in the development of Smart City. One of the major objectives of smart cities mission is offering a feasible, efficient, sustainable and smart services to city residents, workers and visitors.

 

A Smart City may be thought as the cohesive and organized information that improves value by applying latest technologies to retrieve, find, disseminate, and process information [1]. Smart Sustainable Cities combine diverse technologies to reduce their environmental impact and offer citizens better lives [2]. One can also apply technologies for university system for making it smart and sustainable by managing attendance automatically with the help of embedded finger print scanner in the latest mobile devices such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Huawei Mate 8, iPhone 6s or any device that supports fingerprints API. Such system will be quick and easy specially when require authentication of large group of persons simultaneously. The proposed system will be portable as it uses inbuilt fingerprint scanners of mobile. It also saves time as authentication process is automatic and simultaneous. It is also capable of overcome the limitations of the traditional or manual process of registering an attendance in which the teacher call out the roll number of every student and register presence if acknowledged. The chances of errors ad proxies are also eliminated where a class consists a good strength.

 

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

Conventional attendance marking systems are time taking process and prone to human errors. The manual process is very tedious and hard to keep a track of. The task is very mundane. Also it doesn’t allow freedom from proxies. Other systems like RFID and biometric systems can be applied to help the cause but these only increase the cost as they require regular maintenance and again proxies cannot be stopped or completely eliminated [3] [4].

 

There are many mobile apps developed to authenticate user and mark the students using biometric systems, RFID, NFC technology, Bluetooth based system but lacks the proxy proof mass authentication. Generally biometric systems give us more secure and reliable user authentication methods than the traditional ones. Biometric system uses unique part of each individual that are very difficult to imitate. That is why it is considered as one of the most effective methods of authentication and verification. Biometric traits which represent “something we have within our body” can be classified in two main classes: Physiological and Behavioral.

 

Physiological characteristics (which are also known as biological characteristics) are related to shapes of our body parts or body. The parts of the body which is generally considered for authentication are fingerprints, face, Iris and hand. Behavioral characteristics are related to the person’s behavior, some of them are speech/voice recognition, keystroke recognition, and gait recognition etc. But all the above sources of authentication do not support the idea of mass authentication where a large group of persons are authenticated simultaneously.

 

LATEST LITERATURE REVIEW:

Biometric systems are costly to implement everywhere. The Iris recognition system is another useful system and isn’t susceptible to proxies but the main drawback being injuries to the eye [5]. A contingency plan could include storing data about both the eyes which would increase the amount of storage resources required in an organization. The same goes for face recognition, which assures uniqueness but has the same drawbacks [6]. Bluetooth System is close and similar to the functionality of the proposed design but it is a viable resource for a limited population [5]. The RFID systems are more popular. Students are given RFID cards along with their Identity cards. One such system has been developed by [7] as a protection mechanism for new born child from theft in hospital. These cards need to put in the RFID reader before the student enters the classroom. Systems like these require permanent supervision because students can sense two cards leading to a proxy and improper usage can harm the RFID reader [4]. It also requires maintenance [8]. Here the chances of marking proxy attendance increases as the cards can be used by the friend to mark the present. The NFC-based application [9] simplifies various human day-to-day activities by simply   touching an object fixed or integrated with NFC tag. For instance, Smart Touch [10] is one of the   early NFC projects that focus on NFC technology, which was coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre Finland; applications in various areas were developed under this project such as mobile payment and ticketing. The system is vulnerable to proxy attendance. Machine Learning [11] can also be used to enhance the accuracy of the above systems. These machine learning algorithms may be applied for various purposes like stress management system [12], student sentiment processing effective teaching learning process [13] or for analyzing the customer review of a product [14].

 

Devices Capable of Registering Fingerprints:

The proposed design which uses finger prints scanned by the mobile device itself of the student will lower down the proxy chances to zero as the system uses the finger print of the users. Users are supposed to take the device alongwith themselves to university or the office. The overall cost of the system will not increase as now a day everyone is using smart phones. These devices are easily available and are summarized in table 1.

 

Table 1: Devices those are capable to register the finger prints

S. No	Brand Name	Mobile Model
1	Apple	iPhone 5s, 6s etc
2	Samsung	Samsung Galaxy Note5, S5, S6 edge
3	Lenovo	Lenovo K4 note, Lenovo Vibe p1
4	Coolpad	Coolpad note 3
5	Oneplus	Oneplus 2
6	Panasonic	Panasonic Eluga Mark
7	Sony	Xperia Z5
8	Xiaomi	XiaomiRedmi Note 3
9	LG Electronics	Nexus 6P
10	Huawei	Honor 5x, Huawei Mate 8

 

 

ENVIRONMENTAL SETUP:

There are certain pre-processing that has to be performed to use mobile fingerprint scanner in an application. For integrating the smart devices within the system one has to registering fingerprints first.

 

Registering fingerprints to authenticate the user for Android device Apps:

Registering fingerprints to authenticate the user using Android device is available on [15]. First of all a symmetric key is generated in the Android Key Store using Key Generator [16]. For utilizing the generated key one is required to be authenticated by fingerprint and has to provide a Key Gen Parameter Spec [17]. The generated key may be used only after the authentication process and by setting Key Gen Parameter Spec. Builder. set User Authentication Required [18]. Finger prints Manager. Authenticate [3] method is then used by fingerprint sensor to listen a fingerprint and then a Cipher [19] initialized symmetric key will be created. After this fingerprint verification process, the Finger print Manager Authentication Callback #on Authentication Succeeded [20] is called to report the success. There are various smart phones that uses Marshmallow fingerprint API. Among the lists are the Samsung Galaxy phones, Nexus 5X and 6P phones. This Marshmallow fingerprint API is used for unlocking the phone, unlock apps downloaded from the Google Play Store and also for authorizing purchases. Also various apps have been developed that uses the Marshmallow fingerprint API [21]

 

Registered fingerprints to authenticate the user for iOS device Apps

The devices based on iOS use Touch ID API [22] for fingerprint validation. Apple used Touch ID API with the introduction of iOS 7. The iPhone 5S uses Touch ID. The Local Authentication framework [18] may be used Touch ID that are made available with iOS 8. It has a provision of evaluating the specific security policies for a device. There is only one exposed class; LA Context [23], that can be used by programmer. Other authentication process is managed by device itself and programmers don’t have any control on it. LA Context and LA Policy [24] are key for authentication. The LA Context class is a programming interface for evaluating authentication policies whereas LA Policy contains only one value; device Owner Authentication with Biometrics [25]. The LA Error is used for reporting an error if authentication process fails. For example the error Touch ID Not Enrolled is returned when user hasn’t set up Touch ID.

 

Performing Touch ID Authentication:

One has to import the Local Authentication framework to access to the LA Context class. Next, utility function has to be written that will take care of updating the labels. Label will be displayed in green colour on successful authentication whereas red colour is used in case of any failure.

 

PROPOSED ARCHITECTURE:

The proposed design which uses finger prints scanned by the mobile device itself of the student will lower down the proxy chances to zero as the system uses the finger print of the users. Users are supposed to take the device along with themselves to university or the office.  The proposed design is an adoption of [26] as depicted in figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Communication architecture of the system [26]

It will be an online system which can be further used as a system to broadcast the stored information via a mobile app. As online systems are always dependent on the network and this system will be network dependent to mark the attendance and the stored information can be utilized as per the requirement. The system will not depend on the presence of the teacher as the mobile app will use the key (stored in the device and used by the app) that is associated with the finger print of the student or a user. In addition, various functionalities can be developed accordingly. Currently there are many mobile applications that keeps track of the students and stores the attendances in the internal storage of the device and at the end of the day the entire stored data is uploaded to the server by each teacher, Hence the data transfer is always dependent on the uploading to the server and the parents cannot get the real time status of their child in the school.  As the approached design is totally dependent on the network hence the system designed to provide the real-time status and remove the dependency of the teacher while uploading the data. The system will upload the status of the students and the teacher as well on the server. The idea also help in saving the time of a class by just entering the class and press the home button of the device and the app will mark the attendance automatically. The concept of using the inbuilt finger print scanner of the latest devices will also help in mass authentication; when there are situations or events where organizations need to mark attendance of an assembly.

 

Marking Attendance:

In this proposed design of a system, the student or the employee will have to undergo the following process. The information will be stored in the database that is configured on a centralized server. While registering a user, the data depicted in table 2 is stored in the system.

 

Table 2. Important Fields for Registration and Login Table

This is to note that IMEI number is required in case we want to develop the system device specific.

 

The registration process will be done online via the mobile app. Now the student or the employee when enters the class or office, they need to scan the finger prints by the smart device having built in fingerprint scanners. This data is read at the server side using an API which is passed to the database via a script that helps to make connection with the database and perform the finger print authentication for the first time to login the app. Next time when user enters a class the student needs to select the subject and again scan the finger prints on his smart phone. This generates a request and the data consisting of the key assigned to the scanned finger prints along with other data such as the latitudes and longitudes of the student, the class id and the student id will be send to the server. If fingerprints match the system will mark the attendance of the student as present; absent otherwise.

 

VALIDATIONS:

To validate the user’s presence at specific location, the system uses the Google map Geocoding API [27]. These geo coordinates are used at the time of login and marking presence in the classes or office. If the geo coordinates exists in the range of the geo coordinates of a class which are stored in the master table, the user will be marked as present else absent. The user will have be present in the class to mark the presence. If a user will try to mark the presence outside the class premises he will be marked as absent.

 

CONCLUSION:

The designed system provides a good idea to use the inbuilt technologies in the smart phones that can help to conduct an event where proxy free mass authentication can be performed. Few of such applications are attendances in the schools, colleges, universities and offices. Once the data is stored in the database we can create various functionalities such as sending notifications to the user as an acknowledgement that attendance has been marked and the report of the students can be sent to the parents on mobile or email to update the status of their children. The system does not require an extra tagging or provide RFID tags to the users. Instead it uses smart phone will inbuilt fingerprint scanners. The system validates the authentication of the user by comparing the fingerprints of a user and comparing the geo location coordinates of the user with the coordinates of the class room stored in the master table. Hence the designed system can be very helpful to restrict the students and the employees on marking proxy attendances and save time by mass authentication.  Its ability to uniquely identify each person based on their scanned finger prints make it more sustainable and portable.

 

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE SCOPE:

The limitations of the proposed design is that the system will properly utilized in smart city environment with WiFi and Internet facility to connect the server with the mobile devices. Alternatively one can use mobile data pack. Another limitation is the type of mobile devices. At present the devices with inbuilt finger print scanner are costly and it’s not easy for every student to purchase an smart phone with finger print scanner feature. Further improvement in the proposed system is also possible. The system can be designed to integrate Smart phone cameras that take the images of the user to make it more authentic. Smart phone cameras can be used to take videos of the user to keep eye on users activities while the student enters the class and scans his finger prints to mark his presence. Also the system can receive the videos covered by the classroom cameras and integrate these cameras to the system to update the parents about the activities of their children in the school.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

REFERENCES:

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14.     Syed Imtiyaz Hassan. Extracting the sentiment score of customer review from unstructured big data using Map Reduce algorithm.  International Journal of Database Theory and Application, 2016 9(12): 289-298, doi: 10.14257/ijdta.2016.9.12.26, ISSN: 2005-4270.

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18.     Fingerprint Manager, Available from URL:  https://developer.android.com/reference/android/security/keystore/KeyGenParameterSpec.Builder.html#setUserAuthenticationRequired%28boolean%29. 

19.     Cipher. Available from URL:https://developer.android.com/reference/javax/crypto/Cipher.html

20.     Fingerprint Manager. Authentication Call back. Available from URL: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/fingerprint/FingerprintManager.AuthenticationCallback.html#onAuthenticationSucceeded%28android.hardware.fingerprint.FingerprintManager.AuthenticationResult%29.

21.     This Marshmallow fingerprint-enabled apps will keep yours data secured with just your fingerprint| Android Central. Available from URL:  http://www.androidcentral.com/nexus-imprint-enabled-apps-available-google-play-store.

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23.     LA Context. Available from URL: https://developer.apple.com/reference/localauthentication/lacontext

24.     LA Policy. Available from URL: https://developer.apple.com/reference/localauthentication/lapolicy

25.     Device Owner Authentication With Biometrics. Available from URL: https://developer.apple.com/reference/localauthentication/lapolicy/1622327-deviceownerauthenticationwithbio

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27.     Google Developers Geocoding Responses, Status Codes. Available from URL: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding/intro#GeocodingResponses.

 

 

 

Received on 15.05.2017                             Accepted on 22.06.2017        

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