Photosensitive oRganic sensOr for fingerprint BiomEtric – PROBE

The history of biometry starts with the use of fingerprints to authenticate or identify a person. For more than ten years, identification and security issues around the world relied on the use of fingerprints as a key technology. However, the overall success of fingerprints for identification and verification purposes greatly depends on the quality of the fingerprints initially acquired and enrolled. Fingerprint was the first biometric modality which benefited from extensive research and developments efforts. A wide range of fingerprint live scanners, with different levels of quality, is now available on the market. These sensors are addressing a number of operational needs from access control to law enforcement applications through border control.
Unfortunately, the sensors delivering high quality images still suffer from drawback limiting their massive deployment: a fairly high cost, their bulk and heavy weight (especially for slap sensors enabling the simultaneous acquisition of several fingers).
The PROBE project’s objective is to study and develop an innovative live scanner prototype for fingerprint biometric based on the use of Photosensitive Organic Image Sensors (POIS). The main advantage of this technology is the ability to design large surface and very thin sensors at much lower costs. Such live scanner would surely contribute to a higher generalization of the use of fingerprint biometric.
The PROBE concept would be also particularly suitable to address the growing market of mobile devices where the demand for integrated fingerprints acquisition capability is increasing. Last but not least, the ability of the concept to distinguish microscopic patterns makes it versatile and paves the way to other applications in the security fields (e.g. paper or banknote traceability or agrofood security) or outside security markets like non destructive testing (NDT). As a consequence, the exploitation task of the project will not only cover the biometric markets but also investigate other applications. This task will maximize the return of investment for all partners of the consortium, and will leverage the impact of the Public Grant. Besides, privacy compliance and privacy risks analysis will be closely link to the exploitation task and will be covered in this project thanks to the involvement in the consortium of an expert in the “privacy by design” concept.