Compact Imaging Teams with SRI International for Dynamic Biometrics Development under IARPA Odin Program

June 27, 2017

Mountain View, CA—June 27, 2017—Compact Imaging, Inc. (CI) today announced that SRI International has selected CI’s non-invasive depth scanning sensor, MRO™, as a critical component in the development of “dynamic biometrics” for improved detection of attempts to evade or deceive biometric security systems, such as fingerprint scanners.  The development is being performed under a multi-year contract awarded to SRI as part of IARPA’s (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, National Intelligence Directorate) Odin Program.

The goal of the Odin Program is to develop advanced technologies to detect “presentation attacks,” as attempts to deceive biometric security systems are often called. Conventional biometrics, such as fingerprint, iris and face, rely on static surface images of human tissue. Under the Odin Program, SRI is researching innovative dynamic biometrics systems and techniques to dramatically improve the presentation attack detection capabilities of biometric systems by imaging, measuring and analyzing real-time physiological responses of living tissue to external and internal stimuli.  By analyzing such factors as changes in heart rate, perspiration and blood flow, the system will reliably detect whether these tissues are real or being faked. CI’s MRO™ technology, which uses optical means to rapidly and non-invasively create depth images of human tissue, will play a key role in the suite of dynamic biometrics techniques SRI is developing.

“Presentation attack detection is a critical weakness in current generation biometric security systems,” said Jeffrey Lubin, Ph.D., senior research scientist at SRI and Principal Investigator for SRI’s Odin team. “Scanning tissue below the skin surface to detect dynamic physiological information that conventional scanners do not reveal is a significant element of our team’s approach in the Odin program. We hope that the enhanced security measures developed in this program will greatly expand the range of uses for biometric systems, benefiting people, businesses and governments around the world.”

“IARPA’s Odin Program is researching new technologies to detect presentation attacks, where perpetrators try to deceive real-world biometric security systems through a variety of methods, including fake fingerprints,” said Chris Boehnen, senior program manager at IARPA. “Today’s systems are not able to reliably detect presentation attacks. On behalf of our intelligence and security community, IARPA has launched the Odin Program to help address this vulnerability.”

Compact Imaging’s breakthrough MRO™ (Multiple Reference OCT) brings well-established, non-invasive, OCT (optical coherence tomography) imaging to high volume field applications that require small size and low cost, such as biometric security systems for identity authentication. MRO directly detects fake fingerprints, determines liveness and images tissue in depth to reveal sub-dermal fingerprints. These sub-dermal fingerprints, which can be collected from wet, worn or dry fingers, lie securely below the surface fingerprints that make up today’s biometric databases.

“Compact Imaging’s MRO non-invasive sub-surface imaging technology reveals the sub-dermal fingerprint and is a powerful response to the real security need for improved presentation attack detection that IARPA is pursuing in the Odin Program,” said Don Bogue, CEO, Compact Imaging.  “We are pleased that SRI recognizes the importance of MRO to developing the next generation of biometrics.”

This research is based upon work supported in part by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), contract number 2017-17022400004.


The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of ODNI, IARPA, or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation therein.