“BIO-METRIC BASED VOTER AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE"

The manual authentication of an eligible voter becomes a tedious process because of human intervention in the present voting system. Fake identification is found wide spread and adopted by illegal voters. With the advent of embedded technology, the intelligence can be built–in the present voting system, to prevent bogus voters in casting their votes. The proposed project titled “BIO-METRIC BASED VOTER AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE” plays a vital role in authenticating the identity of a valid and eligible voter using his bio-metric parameters. Thus, polling process can be made fool proof by eliminating the possibility of illegal casting of votes by bogus voters.

EXISTING SYSTEM

Revenue department of the state government for a locality finalizes the list of eligible voters of that area, before a polling process starts. Eligible voters are the given the opportunity to cast heir their vote in their respective polling booth by producing any of the following identity proof, namely

Ø  Voter ID card.

Ø  Pan card.

Ø  Driving license.

Using the above identification features, the following method is being adopted in present for election by the election commission of India for the people to vote the right candidates.

Technological background of EVM

Indian voting machines use a two-piece system with a balloting unit presenting the

voter with a button (momentary switch) for each choice connected by a cable to an electronic ballot box.

An EVM consists of two units:

• Control unit
• Balloting unit

The two units are joined by a five-meter cable. The Control Unit is with the Presiding Officer or a Polling Officer and the Balloting Unit is placed inside the voting compartment. Instead of issuing a ballot paper, the Polling Officer in-charge of the Control Unit will press the Ballot Button. This will enable the voter to cast his vote by pressing the blue button on the Balloting Unit against the candidate and symbol of his choice. The microchip used in EVMs is manufactured in Japan and it is sealed at the time of import. It cannot be opened and any attempt to rewrite the program cannot be done without damaging the chip.

 Even though there are so many features available in this machine, there are certain drawbacks for this technology like failure of the voting machine during the polling process and the possibility of the on-duty staff to malpractice. Illegal voters produce fake identity of the eligible voters who are not available at the time of polling process, and cast their vote in behalf the eligible voters. Thus bogus casting of illegal votes continues even after severe scrutinizing by the polling officer present at the polling booth.

PROPOSED SYSTEM

BIOMETRICS

"Biometrics is the development of statistical and mathematical methods applicable to data analysis problems in the biological sciences"

With regard to technology Biometrics is the term given to the use of biological traits or behavioral characteristics to identify an individual. Their traits may be fingerprints, hand geometry, facial geometry, retina patterns, iris patterns, voice recognition, and handwriting recognition. A Biometrics system is basically a pattern recognition system, including all the hardware and associated software and the interconnecting infrastructure, enabling identification by matching a live sample to a stored pattern in a database. When resolving an individual’s identity there is a distinction between verification and identification and different Biometric systems fall into these two categories. Each sub-category resolves a different question. The first, verification, involves confirming or denying an individual’s claimed identity - ‘Am I who I claim I am?’ The second, identification, involves establishing an individual’s identity - ‘Who am I?’ By resolving these questions using biometrics these systems go beyond traditional security methods, by insisting that the person trying to log on is the actual person. Biometrics is irrevocably tied to the individual.

Biometrics and why use it in for Network Authentication

Network security relies on one of three approaches for identification - what you have, what you know or who you are. Previous forms of identifiers relied on what you have or what you know or both. Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) were one of the first methods used for identification. There are also methods that involve passwords and physical tokens e.g. smart cards. There are a number of problems associated with this kind of identification. People forget passwords, lose tokens, reuse passwords, and write them down, tokens can get stolen. The recognition of the above does not mean the identification of the person providing it - they could be presented by anybody. With the advent of e-commerce brings increased pressure on IT managers to provide partners and customers with means of identification to access corporate networks. This results in a deluge of passwords and means of access, which are often forgotten, misused or lost. With the increased population accessing these networks the risk of attacks on the networks is increased. Companies are turning to Biometric Systems to bring tighter security to their computer networks.

BIOMETRICS SECURITY

We have seen in James Bond movies that doors can be opened by giving voice commands. In some Hollywood movies, you would have seen thumb impressions are used to open doors. All these are nothing but Biometrics.
Think of these scenarios.

1. You go to a bank to withdraw money. You fill up the withdrawal form, sign it and give it to the bank clerk. Your signature is used to verify your identity
2. You are shopping using your credit cards. While paying the photograph on the credit cards and the signature on the credit cards are used to verify your identity.
3. In big companies, all employees are issued an 'employee pass' with their photograph. People with these 'employee pass'es is allowed access to the company premises.

In all these above scenarios, signature and photographs are used to verify a person's identity. In reality any person can learn to use another person's signature. Worse still are they can replace your photograph with their own photograph on these cards. Therefore, these existing authentication methods are not secure enough.
Biometrics solves these above issues. Every person's face is unique. Each person's thumb impression is also unique. Everyone's voice is different from others. The eyes are also unique for every person. Therefore it makes sense to use these unique features of each person as a means of authentication.Therefore for using computers, passwords are no longer required. To enter one's company, employee passes are no longer required. Your body is sufficient. Using any parts of your body the biometrics system can identify you. America, Canada and some European nations already use these security systems.

BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS

The diagram on right shows a simple block diagram of a biometric system. When such a system is networked together with telecommunications technology, biometric systems become telebiometric systems. The main operations a system can perform are enrollment and test. During the enrollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. During the test, biometric information is detected and compared with the stored information. Note that it is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems. They are secure if the biometric system is to be robust. The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and our system; it has to acquire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired.

The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g. removing background noise), to use some kind of normalization, etc. In the third block features needed are extracted. This step is an important step as the correct features need to be extracted and the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of all the characteristics extracted from the source, in the optimal size to allow for adequate identifiability

If enrollment is being performed the template is simply stored somewhere (on a card or within a database or both). If a matching phase is being performed, the obtained template is passed to a matcher that compares it with other existing templates, estimating the distance between them using any algorithm (e.g. Hamming distance). The matching program will analyze the template with the input. This will then be output for any specified use or purpose (e.g. entrance in a restricted area).

Current uses of Biometric Authentication

The most popular biometric authentication scheme employed for the last few years has been Iris Recognition. The main applications are entry control, ATMs and Government programs. Recently network companies have realized the advantages of biometric authentication for networks and offer products to achieve this scheme. Products offered include fingerprint analysis, iris recognition, voice recognition or combinations of these. However widespread use of biometrics as a means of authentication has not yet been fully realized.

ADVANTAGE OF USING FINGERPRINT THAN OTHER BIOMETRICS METHODS

Because due to some disadvantages of other methods, namely

ü  In face recognition, accuracy is not satisfied and cannot handle identical twins.

ü  In iris recognition, not easy to use since light intensity affects the humans (ir rays affect our eyes).

FINGERPRINTS AS A BIOMETRIC

§  High Universality

§  A majority of the population (>96%) have legible fingerprints

§  More than the number of people who possess passports, license and IDs

§  High Distinctiveness

§  Even identical twins have different fingerprints (most biometrics fail)

§  Individuality of fingerprints established through empirical evidence

§  High Permanence

§  Fingerprints are formed in the fetal stage and remain structurally unchanged through out life.

§  High Performance

§  One of the most accurate forms of biometrics available

§  Best trade off between convenience and security

§  High Acceptability

§  Fingerprint acquisition is non intrusive. Requires no training.

HOW A FINGERPRINT SCANNER WORKS

A fingerprint contains a number of unique physical characteristics called minutiae, which includes certain visible aspects of fingerprints such as ridges, ridge endings and bifurcations (forks in ridges). Minutiae are generally found in the core points of fingerprints, located near the center of the fingertips. These characteristics are used to distinguish two fingerprints, or to state that they are the same. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. There are a number of different ways to get an image of a fingerprint, and the most common methods today for electronic fingerprint readers are optical scanning and capacitance scanning. When a fingerprint is applied to - or passed over - the sensor window of the fingerprint reader, the fingerprint is scanned and a gray-scale image is captured. Special computer software then identifies the key minutiae points from the image. These points are then converted into a unique digital representation, called "template", comparable to a very big password. When a fingerprint enrollment is done, only the fingerprint template is stored, not the actual image of the fingerprint. The fingerprint template is not only smaller than the finger image, but also faster to process when comparing two fingerprints.

In the identification process the user doesn't need to state who he/she is. A fingerprint is taken and compared to each fingerprint in the database of registered users. When a match occurs, the user is "identified" as the existing user the system found. Since the newly acquired fingerprint is compared to many stored fingerprints, this is called a one-to-many matching process (1: N). As in the verification process, when fingerprint identification is done, only the fingerprint template is used in the comparison, not the actual image of the fingerprint. Although it may appear to be a simple process, fingerprint recognition involves the state-of-the-art technology in hardware, for the readers, and software, to process the fingerprint images and templates. But due to the effort of the hardware and software makers, all this complexity is hidden and fingerprint technology usage is nowadays as simple as touching the reader.

APPLICATION OF FINGERPRINT IN VOTING MACHINE:

INTRODUCTION

Ø  This system is used to prevent the Bogus Voting during election period.

Ø  The finger prints of the voters are stored in the server and they are compared with the voters finger print again during Election.

Ø  If the figure print mismatches the voting machine will be locked and alarms will be raised.

WORKING

              The Proposed project titled “BIO-METRIC BASED VOTER AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINE” plays a vital role in finding the eligible voter, using the bio-metric parameters.

            As a primary function the election commission of India collects the valid voter’s information. This information includes the ID, father’s name, age, DOB, photo, and finger prints. Each voters finger print and photo occupies a sum of 1.5MB.The other data’s such as the name ,age , father’s name,sex,ID.etc.will occupies 512KB,which on the whole  makes it a total sum of 2MB of memory space allocated for a voter in the server.

            The gathered information is stored in the server along with the other valid information taken from the voter under the direct perusal of the election commission staff. This information will be useful for the commission staff for securitizing purpose in case any malfunction takes place. These information’s stored in the server can also be used by other government officials or departments for management and security reasons.

           On the day of election the voter is sent in to the polling booth to cast his vote. As per procedure the person will be checked for his finger print identification. He is first assisted to place his big finger on the scanner.

           In the verification process the user states who he/she is and a fingerprint is taken and compared to the user's previously registered fingerprint. If the fingerprints match, the user is "verified" as who he/she says he/she is. Since the newly acquired fingerprint is compared to only one stored fingerprint, this is called a one-to-one matching process (1:1). As in the enrollment process, when fingerprint verification is done, only the fingerprint template is used in the comparison, not the actual image of the fingerprint.

              Although it may appear to be a simple process, fingerprint recognition involves the state-of-the-art technology in hardware, for the readers, and software, to process the fingerprint images and templates. But due to the effort of the hardware and software makers, all this complexity is hidden and fingerprint technology usage is nowadays as simple as touching the reader.

              If the finger prints are found genuine, then the person will be allowed to cast his vote. The positive response comes from the node after verifying the finger print already stored in the server. This signal allows only one person to enter the polling machine. If not then the person will be blocked from doing his right to vote. In this case an alarm will go off in the polling booth to alert the staff on duty.

             The above is the process that takes place on the day of election for the first cycle. Once the first vote gets casted the voting machine will be locked. The machine will remain locked until the next signal arrives from the server confirming the identification of the person.

ADVANTAGES:

1.                              Ensures no invalid votes.

2.                              Provides exact authentication.

APPLICATION:

1. This system can be used in the public elections.
2. This is applied for the student’s elections in college also.
3. Banking purpose.

COST OF ESTIMATION:

NAME OF THE COMPONENTS	COST IN RS
MICROCONTROLLER	300
NITGEN SCANNER	6000
SERVER	15lakhs
OTHER COMPONENTS	1000

BENEFITS

The following benefits can be obtained by using the above proposed system.

ü  Voter identity authentication

ü  Non eligibility –no permission for voting

ü  Already casted - no permission for second voting.

ü  The server information used in this system can be used for management and security reasons by government departments such as banking, telecommunication, etc.

CONCLUSION:

                    In the existing system there are a lot of loop holes. There are very high chances for malpractice to be done with or with out the knowledge of the government. So in order to avoid this we make use of the “bio-metric based voter authentication system for electronic voting machine”.