Signal and Image Processing for Biometrics

Chapter 14Visual Data Protection ¹

 

 

14.1. Introduction

When dealing with applications requiring a high security level, visual data such as digital images have to be protected regarding potential attacks. Within this context, the signal and image processing provide some useful tools that we can implement in multimedia and information technology (IT) systems, including biometric systems. Within this context, digital images can be secured through data-hiding techniques and various cryptographic techniques, such as symmetric, asymmetric, visual cryptography, and visual secret sharing schemes.

In this chapter (complementary to the previous chapter), special interest will be given to visual data hiding (section 14.2), in which digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting will be considered. In section 14.3, a homomorphism-based visual secret sharing scheme will be described. Finally, section 14.4 concludes this chapter.

14.2. Visual data hiding

In this section, we discuss visual data protection through information hiding, which has been in practice since the time of Greeks in the form of steganography. Information hiding aims to make the information imperceptible through some means. Steganography is the way of hiding secret data into a cover data such that the secret data cannot be detected. Modern digital media has explored new methods and approaches for effective information hiding. These methods use complex mathematical techniques to make it more difficult for the attacker or ...