A Multimodal Biometric System Based on an Active Database Paradigm

Today, on many occasions and in many different places, one must be authorised in order to use certain services or applications or to access protected data. A user (person) can be authorised in three different ways or combinations of ways: it is either information that the user knows, something that the user possesses or a measurement of some physical or psychological characteristics unique to that user, i.e. biometric characteristics. In this paper we emphasize this third possibility. When talking about biometrics we can distinguish two basic types of systems: unimodal and multimodal. The main difference is that the unimodal biometric system is based solely on a single biometric feature, while multimodal biometric systems combine several features. We intend to show how active databases could be used in order to implement a multimodal (unimodal) biometric system and reduce the time needed for authorisation (identification or verification). Specifically, the concept of reactivity upon which active databases rely could be the core of a multimodal biometric system, as will be shown in the paper. We will especially consider the use of complex events used in active databases for authorisation purposes. Key words: ADBMS, active database, complex events, biometrics, biometric system