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We are wanting to add support for fingerprint authentication in a .Net 3.5 application.

We currently are only using the sdk from Griaule. But this only supports like 5 usb plug-and-play devices. We are wanting to support most readers included with laptops, tablets, etc.

Is there a universal way to support many devices? I know there is a new standard starting with Windows 7, but we want to support XP and higher.

Is there even a .Net SDK out there for UPEK or Authentec devices?

Any ideas or help would be appreciated.

jonathanpeppers
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  • I would also like to note that each reader or sdk is most likely going to store fingerprints differently. We are equipped to handle that, and plan on storing each user's fingerprint per device on our server. – jonathanpeppers Dec 14 '09 at 17:45
  • I'm guessing such a thing does not exist. The only way we can get this to work is to store fingerprints locally on the users computer and map to their username/password on our system. We may have to go that route. We were wanting your fingerprint to work across multiple computers... – jonathanpeppers Dec 17 '09 at 17:19
  • Have you found a good solution for this yet, I'm trying to interface the free upek SDK from Delphi and am having a heck of a time. Biometrics with the new DigitalPersona drivers was really easy because they make it obvious which language you're using and their controls generate type libraries - not so much with the free upek SDK. – Peter Turner Jan 25 '11 at 19:13
  • There is not really a good solution. Your best bet is to develop against multiple SDKs for each device you want to support. We put the project for this on hold, but currently use the Digital Persona SDK mainly, and use Griaule's SDK when specifically required by a reader (Griaule is expensive due to the per-user license). – jonathanpeppers Jan 25 '11 at 21:01

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There is no universal way to support all biometric devices. This a relatively new technology and all vendors are fighting for market space any one with their own API/SDK. New modalities of biometric are been developing and no have any retro compatibility with another biometric modalities. One of these is finger and palm vein. Another it is multispectral fingerprint capture that is a patented technology.

An initiative that tried to do that universal API was BioAPI, created by BioAPI Consortium. This standard becomes an ISO standard: ISO 19784-2. Therefore didn`t have participation of biggest vendors of biometric devices. And if you read the specification you will see how complicated is to use it...

Another initiative are been taken by NIST with webservices where any biometric device will have an internal webservice to supply biometric data and images and another system will be in charge of matching and decision process.

Anything different this is commercial tools like Griaule, Neurotechnology and Aware that tries to be a universal way to access biometric devices...

Celino
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I think its best if you develop for WBF, also if you want UPEK has an API called BSAPI that you can interop in C#.

  • Can WBF work on XP? If not, it almost seems useless unless we wait a few years until Windows 7 is the standard. I will look into your other suggestion, however. – jonathanpeppers Dec 14 '09 at 19:38
  • UPEK had an approval process to get their free sdk, otherwise it's going to be $1000 per year. I'm starting to think that this is something that fingerprint reader hardware manufacturers do not want us to be able to accomplish. GrFinger from Griaule was nice because it was a one-time sdk purchase from a past application, but we do not want to have to go that route for every device we want to use. – jonathanpeppers Dec 14 '09 at 19:53
  • The UPEK sdk I tried does not give you access to the actual fingerpint data. It can only give you events for approved/declined and map to a windows user. This is useless for our scenario. – jonathanpeppers Dec 17 '09 at 16:35
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I am going to say there is no such SDK for universal fingerprint reading.

After a week or so of researching, it looks like the only thing with promise is Windows 7's WBF (Windows Biometric Framework).

It will be a couple of years before this is a viable option.

jonathanpeppers
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http://www.digitalpersona.com/

This company offers a great SDk that gives you actual fingerprint data. I'm not sure if it's for just the device they offer or if it's standard for other devices, however, there biometrics are very, very nice.

Michael G
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  • We have already been using this SDK, it only works for 5 devices. It doesn't work for built-in biometric readers found on most Dell laptops (these are UPEK or Authentec readers). If you know a way to make their SDK work with these readers, by all means let me know. – jonathanpeppers Dec 21 '09 at 17:39
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Griaule supports a great number of readers, including UPEK and Authentec readers. Their SDK is great and very simple to use. You can check here the readers they support http://www.griaulebiometrics.com/page/en-us/fingerprint_sdk/supported_readers

Michael
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    Griaule also has a per-user license now, and we do not want any cost per-user built into our software products. They also do not support *all* readers, which is what we're looking for. This post seems like product promotion. – jonathanpeppers Jan 17 '11 at 13:21