Multimodal Biometric

System for Continuous Authentication of Online Users

Identification of users in online or web services

Nowadays, the identification of users in online or web services is linked to a previous user assignment and password. Using Internet services, people can communicate and relate without the obligation to prove their identity, using pseudonyms, false identities or impersonating another person. With or without the user’s consent, any information can trigger identity theft since the keys can be shared, stolen or lost.

Virtual campuses and e-learning platforms have exponentially increased their number of students/users in recent years. One of the biggest problems of the entity offering courses is the uncertainty of not knowing who is taking the path on the other side of the computer screen. Thus certifying the title that the student will receive. At Smiley Owl Tech S.L (hereinafter Smowltech), we detected that this problem is critical in online teaching.

Smowltech was born in 2012 to respond to this lack. We market a continuous user authentication service through a monomodal biometric system based solely on face recognition. The system was marketed under the name SMOWL. Today we are a benchmark in the online student authentication market in eLearning, an international market in continuous growth and unspoiled in this purpose.

Find out more about Smowltech

However, the current state of the art in facial recognition does not allow a reliable recognition where the capture of photos is transparent to the user (system of passive action of the user, so as not to interrupt him in his tasks within the session) and in uncontrolled environments, where the lighting, the user’s pose, his appearance (beard, haircut …), accessories (glasses, hat …), partial occlusions and gestures and expressions are variable. It is not the same to pose in front of a facial recognizer for accessing a terminal (smartphone) or being in a physical space (such as a room) – where the user prostrates, facing the front before the camera, without accessories (glasses, cap), always with the same gesture, with good lighting and without occlusions – to keep that same face during an online session (online teaching) of many hours.
The market needs to capture what happens in front of the device’s screen and what is happening. For this reason, the MULTIBIO system must be completed with some screenshots capture system to keep evidence of what happened in that session.

Therefore, the project’s main objective is to create the first MULTIBIO commercial prototype, a completely new product/service, independent of SMOWL and more complete. It can be commercialized more competitively. Moreover, allowing the entity to lead a position at an international level.

This This new MULTIBIO service will be an automatic, passive authentication service. The user does not actively participate, such as posing in front of the camera. The authentication will be carried out through an automatic, mass and efficient facial and voice identification and in uncontrolled environments (pose, lighting, appearance, partial occlusions, gestures, expressions, ambient noise, a mix of voices…) on images captured by the webcam and through the microphone of the device (low-resolution images in a lot of occasions and low-quality audio), by which the users can verify their access.

Automatically authenticate by facial and voice biometrics.

Capture

Capture from the terminal devices:

Random images through the Webcam
The audio that captures the microphone
Screenshots or screenshots. All this during the entire session duration (continued) and passive attitude of the user (no need to pose or read predefined paragraphs).

Authenticate

Automatically authenticate by facial and voice biometrics that there is someone in front of the terminal and that someone is the person who should be receiving training on that platform.

Funded by:
ERDF/Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities – State Research Agency/ Project (RTC-2016-5711-7).

Project duration: 03/15/2016 – 03/31/2019

This project has been co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the 2014/2020 period to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises. Within the Export Initiation Program framework of ICEX, Smiley Owl Tech SL has been supported by ICEX and the co-financing of the European ERDF fund. This support aims to contribute to its international development and its environment. European Regional Development Fund. A way to make Europe.

The company Smiley Owl Tech SL has been a beneficiary of the European Regional Development Fund, whose objective is to improve the competitiveness of SMEs. Thanks to that, it has launched an International Digital Marketing Plan to improve its online positioning in foreign markets in 2021. For this, it has had the support of the XPANDE DIGITAL Program of the Gipuzkoa Chamber of Commerce.