Image analysis – Applications – Personnel identification
Reexamination Certificate
1999-02-08
2002-01-22
Ahmed, Samir (Department: 2623)
Image analysis
Applications
Personnel identification
C340S005800
Reexamination Certificate
active
06341169
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the fields of document evaluation, identity verification and transaction authorization. The invention aims particularly to facilitate the evaluation of identification documents as employed in the context of retail or wholesale sales or other types of transactions or security and access functions in commercial, industrial, financial, governmental, medical, legal or other service or product fields. The invention is directed toward relieving an evaluating party of the subjective aspects of the evaluation process and creating a record of compliance with a prescribed document validation and identity verification protocol.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are many scenarios in which one individual is required to present a credential, identification document or another instrument of any of the types collectively referred to or commonly known as ID, to another individual for evaluation. The evaluating party (evaluator) uses the credential for the purpose of establishing whether the presenting party (the presenter or the subject, ostensibly the individual identified by the credential) is eligible for a requested transaction. Commonly, the age of the presenter as indicated by the credential determines eligibility. In all of the scenarios the evaluator must determine the validity of the credential itself and verify that the presenter is the individual identified by the credential.
In one type of scenario store clerks are required to demand and evaluate state-issued or other official photo credential from prospective purchasers of tobacco or alcohol. In such scenarios clerks are responsible for enforcing the prohibition of sales of a controlled product to parties of less than a minimum age. Clerks must manually inspect presented photo credentials for obvious alterations or other incriminating flaws attempting to determine whether or not the credential is valid while subjectively comparing the small photographic image on the credential with the presenter attempting to verify that the presenter is the person in the image and mentally computing the age of the presenter from the date of birth printed on the credential. In instances where the presenter provides a false or altered credential which is accepted as valid and verified by the clerk, prohibited transactions can result.
In some cases clerks may employ aids including specially designed calendars, lamps, magnetic stripe readers, barcode readers or other devices to assist in evaluating official credentials. Alternatively, the clerk may use these types of aids to assist in evaluating proprietary credentials. In these instances the systems employed are usually capable of supporting only one type of credential.
Such prior art aids do not relieve the clerk or other evaluating party of the responsibility of subjectively assessing raw biometric information, such as the presenter's face or signature, and comparing the raw biometric data to reference data in the form of a photographic image or an image of a signature, as incorporated in the credential. There has not been provided a means for reviewing whether or not the evaluator made an accurate evaluation or even if an evaluation has been performed at all.
Houvener, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,389, discloses an identity verification system which stores photographic images in a database and retrieves said photographic images upon request. However, Houvener only provides for the rendition of these images by the identity verification system, relying upon a human operator to perform a comparison of the stored photographic image to the physical appearance of an individual before the operator.
Prior art such as Houvener's provides a secure and reliable reference for evaluators to use in the context of credit card transactions or other transactions utilizing proprietary credentials tailored to a particular type of transaction. However, such systems are not well suited for the problem of evaluating credentials for the vast number of transactions conditioned on the presentation and evaluation of a relatively unrestricted variety of drivers licenses or other non-proprietary credential types.
A drawback of previous systems is that these systems must establish a communications link between a terminal and a remote database server each time reference data is needed, delaying the transaction in progress. Moreover, such systems cannot operate independently of the remote server and provide no alternate means of performing an evaluation.
Significantly, prior art systems provide no comprehensive record of the evaluation process or particular evaluation events and their connections to specific purchases of specific products. Ideally, systems directed to the enforcement of sales prohibitions would irrefutably associate a credential with its presenter and with the item(s) purchased. The problem of enforcing age restrictions on the sale of controlled products is therefore not addressed by the prior art systems.
Additionally, by providing a record of transactions, many purposes such as market research, marketing and consumer relations among others, can be addressed by the disclosed system which cannot be addressed by prior art systems.
Prior art systems are relatively inflexible and unable to readily accommodate advances in biometric identification technology as they arise.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with the stated field and background it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method which programmatically validates a credential, or identification document, and verifies the credential by verifying that the individual presenting the credential is the individual identified by the credential. The object is to automatically evaluate the credential as it is presented at a point of evaluation in a wide range of contexts in order to detect fraudulent credentials and thereby preventing attempted fraud on the part of the credential presenter.
A subordinate object of the present invention is to provide a system and method of automatically comparing official data, defining the characteristics of various types of credentials, with data extracted from an image of a credential or with data encoded on or embedded within a credential under evaluation, to establish a reliable measure of whether the data match and therefore whether the credential is recognized and its type identified, thereby validating the credential.
Another subordinate object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for automatically comparing an official archived photographic image or other biometric identifier of the individual identified by a credential with an image or other biometric measure of the credential presenter captured at the time and place of evaluation. The object is to establish a reliable measure of whether the identifiers match and therefore whether the credential presenter is recognized and verified as the individual identified by the credential thereby verifying the credential.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for automatically determining the age of a presenter of a credential.
A defining object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for establishing and facilitating an explicit protocol for evaluating a credential. The inventors propose a system which effects any protocol consisting of procedures for validation and verification employing combinations of automatic (performed by the system) and manual (performed by the operator) functions consistent with and programmed according to a given credential evaluation scenario, the type(s) of credential(s) anticipated in the scenario and the specific features of the system configuration, its processing capabilities, the biometric technology employed and the extents of available reference databases.
A related object of the present invention is to provide a system and method for automatically monitoring and thereby encouraging and enforcing compliance with an explicit protocol for evaluating a credential.
A further related objec
Arcentales Miguel R.
Cadorette, Jr. Normand G.
Vall Jonathan E.
Ahmed Samir
Brown Michael J.
Pulse Systems, Inc.
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