Friction Ridge Image and Features (FRIF) Technology Evaluations (TEs) are a series of public tests of automated friction ridge algorithms. Algorithms tested in FRIF TEs are usually part of a larger Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS). Tests of automated friction ridge algorithms have taken place at NIST since 2003 and were unified under the FRIF umbrella after over two decades in June 2024.
Search one or more exemplar fingerprint image against a participant-defined database of millions of other subjects. Formerly called FpVTE.
NIST continues to run the following technology evaluations under their previous names. These evaluations will migrate to the FRIF brand in the coming months.
Currently active as ELFT. Search one or more friction ridge mark (colloquially, latent) image and/or sets of friction ridge features (e.g., minutia) against a participant-defined database of millions of friction ridge exemplar and/or mark data.
Currently active as PFT. Produce a similarity score given two exemplar fingerprint images.
Currently active as MINEX. Produce a similarity score given two exemplar fingerprint images, where the fingerprint feature representations (i.e., "templates") were not necessarily generated by the algorithm under test. This test supports the comparison operations performed under the US Government's FIPS 201 Evaluation Program.
Currently active as SlapSeg. Automatically draw bounding boxes around the distal phalanges present in a multi-finger impression image.
Questions and comments should be addressed to the team privately by emailing frif [at] nist.gov (frif[at]nist[dot]gov). Public comments on code can be made on the FRIF GitHub Issues Page.
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