1. COST ACTION 275 BIOMETRICS-BASED RECOGNITION OF PEOPLE OVER THE INTERNET Progress Report June 2001-May 2002 Aladdin Ariyaeeinia University of Hertfordshire, UK

2. OVERVIEW Action Identification Data Objectives Technical Description and Implementation Participation and Coordination Work and Progress Dissemination

3. IDENTIFICATION DATA COST Action 275 Title: Biometrics-Based Recognition of People Over the Internet TC Recommendation: 19/10/2000 CSO Approval: 15/12/2000 Start date: 08/06/2001 End date: 07/06/2005 Duration: 48 months First MC meeting: 08/06/2001

4. IDENTIFICATION DATA Number of signatories: 13 Signatories and date of signature: Italy 30/04/2001 Portugal 13/06/2001 United Kingdom 03/05/2001Croatia 18/07/2001 France 03/05/2001 Greece 19/10/2001 Spain 03/05/2001Sweden 12/12/2001 Ireland 08/05/2001Switzerland 20/12/2001 Slovenia 08/05/2001Poland 11/01/2002 Belgium 06/06/2001 Area: Multimedia and Internet Communications Action Web site: http://www.fub.it/cost275 TC Rapporteur: Prof M. Dado, Slovakia

5. OBJECTIVES Main objective: to investigate effective methods for the recognition of people over the Internet based primarily on voice and facial characteristics in order to facilitate, protect and promote financial and other services over this growing telecommunication medium.

6. OBJECTIVES In operational terms: 1.To improve knowledge of the issues and problems involved. 2.To study the current techniques for voice and face recognition and to evaluate their performance in the medium considered. 3.To investigate methods for the fusion of the considered biometric data. 4.To analyse the implementation problems and investigate effective solutions. 5.To identify the potential applications and analyse their requirements. 6.To develop standard methods and tools for the purpose of assessment.

7. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION The activities are divided into four main areas. 1. Speaker Recognition 2. Face Recognition/ other image-based biometrics 3. Applications and Data Fusion 4. Assessment

8. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION Overall activities: divided into three phases over four years. Technical structure: based on four working groups. Each working group is responsible for one of the main areas. The working groups have two meetings a year.

9. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION Progress Review: conducted during the second, fifth and seventh meetings of the Management Committee/working groups. Review Outcomes: will be used to readjust the type and extent of activities within individual phases of operation if necessary. Action Workshops: These will also provide useful forums for the evaluation of the technical progress.

10. PARTICIPATION AND COORDINATION Management Committee: 23 members from 19 institutions Total number of participating institutions: 27 Meetings of MC/Working groups: First meeting: 22-23/11/2001, Martigny, Switzerland Second meeting: 25-26/04/2002, Paris, France Meetings Inaugural MC meeting: 08/06/2001, Brussels, Belgium

11. WORK & PROGRESS 1.Technical Activities Investigations into the existing methods for speaker verification face recognition fingerprint recognition Investigations into multimodal techniques Investigations into implementation issues: Data degradation resulting from transmission over IP. Implementation by avoiding the direct transmission of biometric data over the Internet. Server/client sites design analysis

12. WORK & PROGRESS Focuses identified for the continuation of work 1.Factors adversely affecting the accuracy of verification on the Internet. 2.Extent of effects in (1). 3.Methods for minimising the adverse effects. 4.Assessment tools and procedures.

13. WORK & PROGRESS Some projected activities: 1.Effects of speech/image compression. 2.Problems due to packet loss. 3.Effects of convolutional/additive noise. 4.Analysis/comparison of unimodal/multimodal systems. 5.Provision of a database

14. WORK & PROGRESS Database Problem: absence of a suitable multimodal database collected over IP. Possible solution: appropriate degradation of an existing multimodal database. Database adopted: XM2VTS (high quality, multimodal). Agreements with XM2VTS partners: 1.The required subsets of XM2VTS will be made available to COST 275. 2.COST 275 is authorised to generate a degraded version of the database according to their requirements.

15. WORK & PROGRESS Database XM2VTS will be subjected to simulated degradation associated with: Additive noise. Convolutional noise. Compression. Packet loss Result: a valuable resource for COST 275 and also for projects outside the Action

16. DISSEMINATION 1.Publications and Reports Minutes of the Inaugural meeting, Brussels, Belgium, 8/6/2001 Minutes of the first MC meeting, Martigny, Switzerland, 22-23/11/2001 Minutes of the second MC meeting, Paris, France, 25-26/4/2002

17. DISSEMINATION 2.Workshops The Action first workshop: The Advent of Biometrics on the Internet Venue: FUB, Rome, Italy Dates: 7-8 November 2002 Supported and publicised by: ISCA, IEE, …..

18. The Advent of Biometrics on the Internet A COST 275 WORKSHOP Rome, Italy 7-8 November 2002

19. DISSEMINATION 3.Websitehttp://www.fub.it/cost275 Intended to serve the dissemination purposes and to facilitate communications. Was set up in July 2001and regularly updated. Provides information on: Aims/objectives and working structure of the Action, Current/future events organised, Documents resulting from the activities, Members and contact details, Membership of working groups, Links to related sites.

20. DISSEMINATION 4.Scientific and Technical Cooperation Project/Organisation Point of Contact Actions 277 and 278 Gerard Chollet XM2VTS (EU Project)Kieron Messer BANCA(EU Project) Sebastien Marcel MUHCI(EU Project)Ioannis Pitas BIOMET(National Project, France)Sonia Salicetti David Database(National Project, UK) John Mason ELISA(European Speech Consortium) Ivan Chagnollean SpLC(Int. Special Interest Group) John Mason

21. Cooperation/Publicity 1.Publicity pamphlet: Produced jointly with Actions 277 and 278. 2.Expression of Interest in the area of biometrics, based on a proposed Network of Excellence (BIOMET-NET): Prepared and submitted jointly with the BIOMET project and in collaboration with a number of other projects.

22. EUROPEAN COMMISSION COST Telecommunications, Information Science and Technology Speech-Related COST Actions COST 275 COST 277 COST 278