Key generation using biometric data and secret extraction codes

摘要

A method of generating a key for encrypting communications between first and second terminals includes obtaining a measurement of characteristics of a physical identifier of a user; and extracting a key from the physical identifier using a code selected from a collection of codes. Each code in the collection defines an ordered mapping from a set of values of the characteristics to a set of keys. The collection of codes includes at least one code in which the ordered mapping is a permutation of the ordered mapping of one of the other codes in the collection.