Biometric based multi-party authentication

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In view of the above discussion, it is an object of the present invention to provide improved security in multi-party authentication/verification systems.
These and other objects of the present invention may be provided by methods, systems and computer program products for multi-party authentication which receive a plurality of biometric authentication messages from a corresponding plurality of users.
The biometric authentication messages include biometric data corresponding to the user.
It is determined if each of the plurality of received biometric authentication messages is a valid message based on the biometric data contained in the biometric authentication messages so as to determine a quantity of valid biometric authentication messages.
An indication of authentication is then provided if the quantity of the valid messages of the received plurality of messages is at least an authentication threshold value.
By providing multi-party authentication based on biometric information, the present invention provides for the increased difficulty in impersonating an authorized user which may be provided by the use of biometric information.
In a particular aspect of the present invention, the received biometric authentication messages include a user identification and user biometric data.
In such a case, the received user biometric data is compared with previously stored biometric data corresponding to the user identification of the received biometric authentication message.
The received biometric authentication message is considered a valid message if the comparison indicates that the received user biometric data corresponds to the stored biometric data.
The received and stored user biometric data may be a canonical biometric template generated from a plurality of biometric samples.
Preferably, the canonical biometric templates are generated by majority decoding the plurality of biometric samples.
In a further embodiment of the present invention, the biometric data is compared by determining a closeness between the received user biometric data and the previously stored biometric data