Innovatrics Pulls Ahead in MINEX III Testing

Innovatrics has attained strong results in the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s ongoing fingerprint testing program, MINEX III. The company’s template generator demonstrated the best results in the “pooled 2 fingers” and “native 1 finger” categories, while its template matcher also ranked highly in terms of accuracy and interoperability.

The Minutiae Interoperability Exchange (MINEX) III is a NIST test for evaluating the compliance of fingerprint template generators and matchers with the INCITS 378 fingerprint template standard. It supports the U.S. Government’s Personal Identity Verification (PIV) program by ensuring interoperability and performance standards are met by various software submissions.

The “Template Generators” and “Template Matchers” categories in the MINEX III program represent two crucial components in the fingerprint recognition process.

Template Generators are algorithms or software that process raw fingerprint images to extract and create standardized fingerprint templates. These templates capture the essential features, known as minutiae, such as ridge endings and bifurcations, which are unique to each fingerprint.

Template Matchers are algorithms or software that compare these fingerprint templates against each other to determine a match.

Performing well in the “pooled 2 fingers” category means that Innovatrics’ algorithms are highly effective at generating and matching fingerprint templates using data from two fingers combined. This scenario is often used to enhance accuracy and reliability in biometric systems. Meanwhile, excelling in the “native 1 finger” category indicates that Innovatrics’ algorithms are also top performers when processing data from a single finger, showing their robustness and precision in simpler, more common use cases.

Innovatrics has been in an ongoing battle with Neurotechnology for the top spot in MINEX III’s Template Generators program for a couple of years. The latter’s algorithm matched a previous Innovatrics algorithm in the “pooled 2 fingers” category in October of last year, achieving a False Non-Match Rate of 0.00025 (at a False Match Rate threshold of less than or equal to one percent), though its “native 1 finger” performance still lagged. Now, Innovatrics has firmly edged ahead, with a score of 0.00024.

IDEMIA and Thales, two biometrics giants in their own right, follow behind with scores of 0.00028 and 0.00029, respectively.

In the Template Matcher category, Innovatrics also demonstrated a strong performance according to the NIST MINEX III results. Innovatrics achieved an FNMR (False Non-Match Rate) of 0.00008 at an FMR (False Match Rate) of FMR≤10^-2 for “pooled 2 fingers”, placing it among the top performers. While Neurotechnology and IDEMIA had slightly better FNMRs, Innovatrics still ranked highly, indicating strong matching accuracy and reliability.

Source: NIST

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May 14, 2024 – by Alex Perala