Granted Patent B2

US 12,455,951 · App. 18/557,672 · Granted Oct 28, 2025

Inventors: Michele Borgatti (Bologna, IT); Vito Fabbrizio (Berkeley, CA); Marco Mancini (Prague, CZ)

Assignees: HID Global Corp.; HID Czech s.r.o.; HID Global Taiwan Ltd.

G06F21/32

Abstract

Claims (76)

1. A secure-biometric-sensor system comprising:

a secure element; and

a biometric sensor that is configured to be communicatively interposed between a host and the secure element, the biometric sensor and the secure element being physically bound to one another, the biometric sensor comprising sensor authentication logic that, when executed by at least one hardware processor of the biometric sensor, causes the biometric sensor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a cryptographic challenge from the host;

forwarding the cryptographic challenge to the secure element;

capturing a biometric reading using a biometric-sensing element;

transmitting the captured biometric reading to the host;

receiving a cryptographic response from the secure element, the cryptographic response having been calculated by the secure element based on the cryptographic challenge, the cryptographic response comprising a shared secret between the host and the secure element;

generating a cryptographically entangled token from a predetermined combination of reading-specific data and the shared secret, the reading-specific data comprising one or both of the biometric reading and data derived from the biometric reading; and

transmitting the cryptographically entangled token to the host for use by the host in attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor.

2. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein the biometric sensor and the secure element being physically bound to one another comprises the biometric sensor and the secure element being affixed to a common package substrate.

3. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein the biometric sensor being configured to be communicatively interposed between the host and the secure element comprises the biometric sensor comprising:

a first communication interface via which the biometric sensor is configured to communicate with the host; and

a second communication interface, distinct from the first, via which the biometric sensor is configured to separately communicate with the secure element.

4. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting of the captured biometric reading to the host begins prior to the receiving of the cryptographic response from the secure element.

5. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein:

the transmitting of the captured biometric reading to the host begins after the receiving of the cryptographic response from the secure element; and

the operations further comprise using the shared secret to encrypt the captured biometric reading prior to transmitting the captured biometric reading to the host.

6. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , the operations further comprising, prior to the transmitting of the cryptographically entangled token to the host, using the secure element to digitally sign the cryptographically entangled token for verification by the host of a digital certificate of the secure element.

7. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein:

the cryptographically entangled token comprises a sensor-side hash result of a hash function; and

the operations further comprise using the hash function to generate the sensor-side hash result from the predetermined combination of the reading-specific data and the shared secret.

8. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 7 , wherein the host attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor comprises the host:

calculating a host-side copy of the shared secret from the cryptographic challenge;

using the hash function to generate a host-side hash result from a parallel predetermined combination of host-side reading-specific data and the host-side copy of the shared secret; and

determining whether the sensor-side hash result matches the host-side hash result.

9. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , wherein:

the cryptographically entangled token comprises a sensor-side hash result of an outer hash function; and

the operations further comprise:

using an inner hash function to generate an intermediate sensor-side hash result from the biometric reading and the shared secret; and

using the outer hash function to generate the sensor-side hash result from the intermediate sensor-side hash result.

10. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 9 , wherein using the inner hash function to generate the intermediate sensor-side hash result from the biometric reading and the shared secret comprises:

using the inner hash function to generate a first of two portions of the intermediate sensor-side hash result from the biometric reading and the shared secret; and

subsequently using the inner hash function to generate a second of the two portions of the intermediate sensor-side hash result.

11. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 10 , wherein at least some of the using of the inner hash function to generate the first of the two portions of the intermediate sensor-side hash result occurs prior to receiving the cryptographic response from the secure element.

12. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 10 , wherein all of the using of the inner hash function to generate the first of the two portions of the intermediate sensor-side hash result occurs prior to receiving the cryptographic response from the secure element.

13. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 9 , wherein the host attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor comprises the host:

calculating a host-side copy of the shared secret from the cryptographic challenge;

using the inner hash function to generate an intermediate host-side hash result from the biometric reading and the host-side copy of the shared secret;

using the outer hash function to generate a host-side hash result from the intermediate host-side hash result; and

determining whether the sensor-side hash result matches the host-side hash result.

14. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 , further comprising using a block cipher to encrypt the biometric reading using a first encryption key prior to the transmitting of the captured biometric reading to the host, wherein:

the cryptographically entangled token comprises the encrypted biometric reading; and

the transmitting of the cryptographically entangled token to the host comprises the transmitting of the captured biometric reading to the host.

15. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 14 , wherein the shared secret is the first encryption key.

16. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 15 , wherein the host attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor comprises the host:

calculating a host-side copy of the shared secret from the cryptographic challenge; and

using the host-side copy of the shared secret as a decryption key to decrypt the encrypted biometric reading.

17. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 14 , further comprising:

obtaining a random number, wherein the obtained random number is the first encryption key;

generating an encrypted random number by encrypting the random number using the shared secret as a second encryption key; and

transmitting the encrypted random number to the host.

18. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 17 , wherein the host attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor comprises the host:

calculating a host-side copy of the shared secret from the cryptographic challenge;

obtaining the random number by using the host-side copy of the shared secret as a second decryption key to decrypt the encrypted random number; and

using the obtained random number as a first decryption key to decrypt the encrypted biometric reading.

19. The secure-biometric-sensor system of claim 1 ,

wherein the captured biometric reading comprises liveliness data.

20. A biometric sensor comprising:

first and second communication interfaces via which the biometric sensor is configured to be communicatively interposed between a host and a secure element, the biometric sensor and the secure element being physically bound to one another; and

sensor authentication logic that, when executed by at least one hardware processor of the biometric sensor, causes the biometric sensor to perform operations comprising:

receiving a cryptographic challenge from the host;

forwarding the cryptographic challenge to the secure element;

capturing a biometric reading using a biometric-sensing element;

transmitting the captured biometric reading to the host;

receiving a cryptographic response from the secure element, the cryptographic response having been calculated by the secure element based on the cryptographic challenge, the cryptographic response comprising a shared secret between the host and the secure element;

generating a cryptographically entangled token from a predetermined combination of reading-specific data and the shared secret, the reading-specific data comprising one or both of the biometric reading and data derived from the biometric reading; and

transmitting the cryptographically entangled token to the host for use by the host in attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor.

21. A method performed by a biometric sensor executing stored instructions, the method comprising:

receiving a cryptographic challenge from a host, the biometric sensor being communicatively interposed between the host and a secure element, the biometric sensor and the secure element being physically bound to one another;

forwarding the cryptographic challenge to the secure element;

capturing a biometric reading using a biometric-sensing element;

transmitting the captured biometric reading to the host;

receiving a cryptographic response from the secure element, the cryptographic response having been calculated by the secure element based on the cryptographic challenge, the cryptographic response comprising a shared secret between the host and the secure element;

generating a cryptographically entangled token from a predetermined combination of reading-specific data and the shared secret, the reading-specific data comprising one or both of the biometric reading and data derived from the biometric reading; and

transmitting the cryptographically entangled token to the host for use by the host in attempting to authenticate the captured biometric reading as having been captured by the biometric sensor.

Assignments (3)

Continuity (2)

References Cited (11)