As fingerprint recognition is increasingly used to access more sensitive applications on different platforms, there is a great need of additional security measures to mitigate fraud through identity theft. One crucial area is the fast growing market for mobile payments, where both consumers and financial services need additional security. 60 percent of all transactions in mobile payments expected to be performed via biometric authentication by 2020, primarily via fingerprint sensors in mobile devices.

Without any protective software, most of today’s fingerprint sensors are vulnerable to spoofing and identity theft via fake fingers. To attain a persons’ fingerprint is relatively easy. Fingerprints have for instance been copied from pictures on the web of someone making a “peace sign” selfie.

To create a fake finger made from wax or Play-Doh based on an image of a person’s fingerprint is not too complicated either.

One effective counter measure against this menace is liveness detection, which is the real-time ability to determine if the biometric characteristics presented to a sensor are genuine and not fake.

Precise Biometrics is combining and integrating spoof and liveness detection capability to its industry leading software for mobile devices, Precise BioMatch™ Mobile. The patented algorithm solution can spot a fake fingerprint by analyzing several fundamental image differences between a live fingerprint and a spoof.

The use of fingerprints to conveniently and safely unlock your mobile device is mainstream today. As a market leader in fingerprint software, Precise Biometrics algorithm solutions are used hundreds of millions of times every day on mobile devices as well as on embedded systems such as smart cards, wearables and IoT (Internet of Things).