System and method to facilitate separate cardholder and system access to resources controlled by a smart card

摘要

This invention provides a mechanism, which allows a user's personal identification number (PIN) to operate independently from a biometric authentication system. This improvement reduces the administrative burden of having to keep a user's PIN synchronized with the PIN used to access the user's smart card following successful biometric authentication. The first embodiment of the invention incorporates a cryptographic interface, which bypasses the PIN entry and allows the biometric authentication system to directly access card resources. The second embodiment of the invention provides a second system PIN having greater bit strength than the cardholder PIN. Both embodiments of the invention retrieve secrets (either a cryptographic key or system PIN) from a biometric database by comparing a processed biometric sample with known biometric templates. The biometric authentication system incorporates a client-server architecture, which facilitates multiple biometric authentications.