2.2.1 ITU-T X.1080 family of Recommendations
One of the existing best practices providedfor telebio-
metrics, ITU-T X.1081 (ITU-T, 2011) and X.1084
(ITU-T, 2008a), addresses user interactions, measure-
ments, authentication and system configuration in
open network systems, by providing biometric au-
thentication protocols and profiles for telecommu-
nication systems. It dictates how unspecified end
users and service providers should communicate dur-
ing authentication, along with the roles the associ-
ated servers and clients play when facilitating au-
thentication. Nine authentication models and profiles
are introduced to accommodate different locations of
the biometric database and comparison components.
The authentication models namely, Local, Download,
Attached, Centre, Reference Management on TTP
for local, Reference Management on TTP for centre,
Comparison outsourcing by client, Comparison out-
sourcing server, Storage and comparison outsourcing
by client and server, are derived from existing poli-
cies. By drawing on existing standards in telecom-
munications (such as ITU-T X.509), the biometrics
domain (X9.84-CMS) and BioAPI (ANSI/INCITS,
2002) to interface with sensors and facilitate commu-
nications, a secure platform is formed that is reliable
and interoperable with current systems. Although re-
lated recommendations deal with important aspects
such as authentication infrastructure (ITU-T, 2008c)
and security countermeasures (ITU-T, 2008b), as we
will see in the review, the current ITU-T X.1080 fam-
ily of recommendations lack certain guidelines neces-
sary for effective telebiometric system deployments.
2.2.2 BIAS and NIST 500-288 Family of
Standards
Another newer set of standards that specifically tar-
get provisions required for telebiometrics is the ANSI
INCITS 442 BIAS standard (ANSI/INCITS, 2010)
and the OASIS BIAS SOAP Profile (OASIS, 2012).
The BIAS standard defines how identity assurance
can be provided with biometric services that work
over a service oriented architecture (SOA). It differ-
entiates between biometric operations and data ele-
ments, along with its associated requirements, such
as how to manage biometric data, along with bridg-
ing the gap between business operations and a dis-
tributed biometric system. The standard also speci-
fies modular operations and the inclusion of the CB-
EFF standard (ISO/IEC 19785 1:2006) for data rep-
resentation, as well as the established BioAPI stan-
dards ((ANSI/INCITS, 2002) and ISO/IEC 19784-1)
for added flexible interfacing and draws on existing
biometric expertise. The OASIS BIAS profile aims
to provide conformance with backend biometric ser-
vices (specified by BIAS) and adequate binding to tar-
get web environments, by outlining biometric meth-
ods that use SOA messaging formatted by the XML
defined in the BIAS standard (the data elements). The
profile also provides a comprehensive set of guide-
lines that addresses aggregate operations such as en-
roll, identify, verify and retrieve information, which
are required for tasks in a biometric system. Collec-
tively these standards provide an open framework that
can be used in public open networks.
The standard that accompanies the BIAS and the
BIAS SOAP Profile, the National Institute of Stan-
dards and Technology (NIST) 500-288: Specifica-
tion for Web Services for Biometric Devices (WS-
BD) (Micheals et al., 2012) provides a command
and control protocol for biometric devices in open
networks, thereby extending the acquisition process.
By focusing on an acquisition process that is de-
vice, operating system and channel independent, in-
teroperability is achieved with any component that
is REST (Representational State Transfer) compati-
ble. The components include a client, sensor and
sensor service, which facilitate acquisition requests,
capture biometric samples and provides middleware,
respectively, for the acquisition process. Service be-
haviour, message formats, configuration and opera-
tions are outlined with the aid of existing standards
published by the IETF, ISO and NIST itself. Oper-
ations such as registration, locking, information, ini-
tialisation, configuration, capture, download and can-
cellation all help to facilitate the extended acquisi-
tion process, required for this level of interoperability.
The standard also already has Java and .NET imple-
mentations (which can be found at (NIST, 2013)) that
make deployment easier. The combination of BIAS,
the BIAS SOAP Profile and the WS-BD specification
collectively provide a good platform to provide web
service-based telebiometric systems, which is readily
available to service providers. Although these stan-
dards address some of the issues the ITU-T X.1080
family experiences, they too lack certain guidelines
necessary for public open network deployment.
2.2.3 Best Practice Alternatives
The above best practice directly addresses telebiomet-
ric systems, or extend regular biometric systems to
telebiometrics systems. However, other technical in-
terface, data interchange, profile, testing and report-
ing standards can be modified or replaced to form
more customised guidelines, such as (Otero-Muras
et al., 2007). These customised guidelines should
work well in organisations that already have biomet-
ric guidelines in place, such as the US government,
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