Secure Biometric Match-on-Card Feasibility Report

FIPS 201, "Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors," and its associated special publications define a method to perform biometric match-off-card authentication of a PIV cardholder when the PIV card is inserted into a contact smart card reader. Today, many smart cards, however, implement match-on-card technologies and are desiged to perform cardholder authentication using contactless interface. Contactless match-on-card operation requires additional security measures to ensure the transaction data is encrypted and can be securely transmitted, which can impact performance. NIST conducted the Secure Biometric Match-on-Card (SBMOC) feasibility study to understand the effects of security on performance. This report describes the tests that were conducted to obtain timing metrics for the SBMOC feasibility study and provides a summary of the test results. This feasibility study also allows NIST to explore smart card technology advancements for possible extension of the FIPS 201 and / or other smart card standards.