Bloom Filter vs Homomorphic Encryption: Which approach protects the biometric data and satisfies ISO/IEC 24745?

Abstract

Bloom filter (BF) and homomorphic encryption (HE) are popular modern techniques used to design biometric template protection (BTP) schemes that aim to protect the sensitive biometric information during storage and the comparison process. However, in practice, many BTP schemes based on BF or HE violate at least one of the privacy requirements of the international standard ISO/IEC 24745: irreversibility, unlinkability and confidentiality. In this paper, we investigate the state-of-the-art BTP schemes based on these two approaches and assess their relative strengths and weaknesses with respect to the three requirements of ISO/IEC 24745. The results of our investigation showed that the choice between BF and HE depends on the setting where the BTP scheme will be deployed and the level of trustworthiness of the parties involved in processing the protected template. As a result, HE enhanced by verifiable computation techniques can satisfy the privacy requirements of ISO/IEC 24745 in a trustless setting.