Interoperability of Contact and Contactless Fingerprints Across Multiple Fingerprint Sensors

Abstract

Contactless fingerprinting devices have grown in popularity in recent years due to speed and convenience of capture. Also, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the need for safe and hygienic options for fingerprint capture are more pressing than ever. However, contactless systems face challenges in the areas of interoperability and matching performance as shown in other works. In this paper, we present a contactless vs. contact interoperability assessment of several contactless devices, including cellphone fingerphoto capture. In addition to evaluating the match performance of each contactless sensor, this paper presents an analysis of the impact of finger size and skin melanin content on contactless match performance. AUC results indicate that contactless match performance of the newest contactless devices is reaching that of contact fingerprints. In addition, match scores indicate that, while not as sensitive to melanin content, contactless fingerprint matching may be impacted by finger size.