Biometrics electronic purse

This paper proposes an efficient and universal smart card system to be implemented for banking applications over the Internet to support the fast growing electronic commerce industry. Encryption technology such as digital certificates and signatures were exploited and integrated with other authentication specifications (e.g. SET) to provide secure transactions over a distributed network. A simple PIN code verification is no longer sufficient and would require a more complex and fool proof authentication method. A 56-bit DES encryption algorithm can easily be broken in just 2 to 3 days using the EFF DES CRACKER, an unclassified ASIC machine. This paper looks into using biometrics as a means of authentication, thus requiring a new generation of smart card technology to be implemented in banking and a multiple applications environment. A prototype of the proposed biometrics electronic purse (BEP) was built using the Schlumberger Cyberflex Multi8K Java Card with simple file management utilities software to upload/download biometrics template to/from the Java card.