EP0833281B1 - Access control equipment and access badge for this equipment - Google Patents

Description

Access control to a protected area is conventionally carried out by equipment with a badge reader, which controls unlocking of the access door that the reader controls. The badge is an electronic key containing access authorization information, which in particular allows to identify its bearer in order to allow him access to certain areas and to him refuse for others, depending on the information stored in the reader, or in a central database. So the badge is identified and it's possession which allows access authorization to be obtained.

In order to protect against the theft of a badge, and verify that its holder and its carrier are one, there is often a keyboard for entering a word code, or Personal Identification Number (PIN, according to English terminology) that the wearer must provide to the equipment, to identify himself.

There are also equipments in which the identification of the bearer of badge is made by recognition of his fingerprints.

In all the systems indicated above, the wearer must carry out two seizures: he must manually enter his badge to insert it into the reader and he must electronically enter the code word or its fingerprints. The comfort of use, or user-friendliness, of such a dual-operation system leaves to be desired because the badge holder cannot then, if necessary, push simultaneously the door controlled. In addition, the time required for handling above limits the flow rate.

To improve usability, it is known to provide a passage without contact by means of a badge comprising a radio transmitter associated with a card chip containing access authorization information and interrogated remotely by the reader, which frees the hand which was necessary for the presentation of the badge. However, the smart card generally does not contain information identification code (PIN). But if it does, the entry time of this oberates, as indicated above, the rate of passage and again the user-friendliness, which incites the operator to deactivate this additional security what constitutes the PIN code word.

In addition, radio transmissions between the badge and the reader show the disadvantage of risking being picked up by a third party, who is thus able to reproduce, in a badge in its possession, the information transmitted, that is to say the access authorizations but also, very often, the code word confidential PIN. The double security of the badge reader and the keyboard for entering the PIN code word is then faulted.

WO 96 06409 A teaches a badge carrying address data specific to the badge holder, which indicates a data memory area carrier identification in central equipment.

GB 2 181582 A teaches a transmitter device carrying a memory fingerprint data and a fingerprint reader for secure the command to send other data.

The invention aims to provide access control equipment which be both user-friendly and safe.

• des moyens de saisie et d'identification de la caractéristique physique particulière considérée du porteur du badge,
• des moyens de comparaison reliés en entrée aux moyens radio et aux moyens de saisie et d'identification et, en sortie, à
• des moyens de verrouillage de l'accès.

Equipment for controlling access to a protected area of a badge holder, the badge comprising memory means for storing a particular physical characteristic of the holder and radio means connected to the memory means,
the equipment comprising radio means, arranged to read in the memory means of the badge,
the equipment being characterized by the fact that it comprises

• means for entering and identifying the particular physical characteristic considered of the badge holder,
• comparison means connected at the input to the radio means and to the input and identification means and, at the output, to
• access locking means.

The plaintiff went against the idea that had prevailed until then, according to which radio transmission would reduce the security level of access control. A further analysis of the problem made him discover in fact that it was appropriate to take into account that the particular physical characteristics of the wearer fundamentally differ from conventional data. These have no value only by their content, regardless of their medium, and can therefore be copied to another similar medium and be used directly for other purposes fraudulent. On the other hand, and even if the information defined by the physical characteristics of a person can be copied once that they have been transformed into computer, digital data, it is impossible to reconstruct them in their original analog form since they are an integral part of the person. As a characteristic of the person, other than fingerprints, we can think of the image of the retina or the genetic code.

As a result, it then appeared to the plaintiff that one could perfectly tolerate a reduction in the level of safety in terms of reading by badge radio, since entering physical characteristics directly on the carrier alone maintained a high standard.

The access control then presents a good user-friendliness and allows a fast passage, especially since the only operation to be carried out by the badge holder is to come to the means of identification, without having to enter a code word. In short, the badge holder somehow provides the attribute of his own person.

The invention also relates to a badge for controlling access to a protected area for the access control equipment of the invention, comprising radio means controlled by storage means, characterized in that the means storage devices are arranged to transmit, to an access control device, identification data, representative of a physical characteristic specific to a badge holder.

The invention will be better understood using the following description of the preferred embodiment of the equipment of the invention and of the associated badge, with reference to the single figure which represents them diagrammatically.

The equipment of the invention, bearing the reference 1, has two paths access control data entry. On the one hand, it is arranged to cooperate with a badge 2 for providing access authorization data, indicating a right of way to controlled access. On the other hand, the equipment 1 can enter here the fingerprints of badge holder 2. The constitution of badge 2 and that of equipment 1 will be specified below.

The badge 2 comprises a box 3 comprising a radio transmitter circuit 4, associated with a standby radio receiver circuit 41, arranged to wake up among other things the transmitter 4 when the badge 2 enters the radio coverage area of equipment 1, indicated below.

The housing 3 here comprises a connector, not shown, for receiving a smart card 5 carrying a microprocessor 6 for managing the circuits of the card 5, in particular a memory 7 containing the access authorization data. In this example, a data memory 8 representing the image of the fingerprint of a specific badge holder 2 and a circuit scrambling 9 supplied with data by memories 7 and 8 for controlling the radio transmitter 4 through the above connector. The wake-up circuit 41 also controls the awakening of circuits 6 to 9, which, moreover, are carried out in a low consumption technology, avoiding accelerated battery discharge, no shown, locally supplying circuits 4 and 41 and card 5. An embodiment integrated of a box comprising all the circuits above would not be excluded.

Equipment 1 comprises, on the first input channel, a radio receiver 11, associated with a wake-up transmitter 111, determining the indicated radio coverage above, controlling the wake-up circuit 41. The receiver 11 is connected at output to a working memory 12 for temporary storage of the data read in the memories 7 and 8, comprising at input a descrambling circuit complementary to circuit 9. A first output from memory 12 address, by access authorization data read from memory 7, memory logic database 13 providing in response a binary authorization signal access, applied to an ET 19 logic gate with two inputs controlling a solenoid 20 for locking / unlocking a control gate 21 access to a protected area. Memory 13 is equivalent to a comparator comparing the data read in badge 2 with local peer data authorization related to equipment 1 and determining the attributes or criteria that must have the holder of badge 2 in order for them to be authorized to cross the gate 21.

On a second channel, the equipment 1 comprises a reader 15 for inputting images of a part of the wearer's body, here the image of an area of skin and more precisely in this case fingerprints. Reader 15, like scanner, is connected at the output to an image processing circuit 16 which extracts from the image, captured by the reader 15, the positions of the characteristic points of the fingerprints, in order to reduce the memory volume required. A footprint image is thus characterized by the relative positions, or topology, of these points, each representing for example the intersections between grooves of the imprint.

A comparator 17 receives the image data determined by the circuit 16 and those corresponding from memory 12, representing the data of the memory 8 of badge 2, and, in the event of a match, it provides a signal of identification of the holder of badge 2, applied to the second entry of the door AND 19, indicating that he is indeed the holder of the badge 2.

When the AND gate 19 detects the simultaneous presence of the two signals, access authorization and identification, it controls the electromagnet 20 to unlock the gate 21.

Access authorizations can indicate one or more attributes of the holder badge 2, for example the category of staff, or the hierarchical level, and the memory 13 authorizes access or not according to this or these attributes. Another similar equipment, controlling another access route to another area, may have been initialized (writing memory 13) to provide a different response, according to criteria justifying access to this other area by certain categories personnel with a defined attribute. The memory 13 is thus equivalent to a logic to access decision tables addressed by criteria or attributes.

The operation of the equipment 1 and of the badge 2 will now be explained in more detail.

When the badge holder 2 approaches equipment 1 and enters its radio coverage area, the transmitter 111 awakens, by the receiver 41, the circuits of badge 2 which had been put in the rest state, with reduced consumption or even interrupted by circuit 41, then not controlled. The microprocessor 20, awake, then controls the radio transmission of the contents of memories 7 and 8, under tangled shape (9).

The memory 12 stores this data after having unscrambled it and these are treated as already explained. It could have been expected that descrambling is performed at circuits 13 and 17 using them.

At the same time, the wearer of badge 2 must affix the concerned finger on the scanner 15 to supply the processing circuit 16. The constellation of positions of the characteristic points, which was similarly previously entered in a step of commissioning the badge 2 by loading its memory 8 into particular, is then compared (17) to that defined by the reference data read in memory 8. As an example, we can indicate that this comparison can be carried out by a signal processing equivalent to a translation and a rotation until the positions are perfectly superimposed (or a large percentage of these in an area of the image). We can still think of a determination the level of correlation between images by comparison of attributes thereof, for example by determining a spectrum of distances between points image characteristics and by comparison to a homologous spectrum of reference (8).

In other examples, this may be the image of the retina of the carrier badge that is seized.

Similarly, the authorization data could still be presented under directly explicit form, and no longer in the form of attributes to be interpreted by the reader, i.e. in the form of a list of zones, or gates, individualized access to which is authorized to the badge holder 2. In this case, the badge 2 would only transmit this authorization to gate 19, circuit 13 then being almost transparent, that is to say that the badge authorization data 2 would be validated, that is to say command door 19, by their only content ,. For protection, however, this validation may require that the authorization data read in the badge has an electronic key format predetermined, the secret of which is here protected by scrambling. Circuit 13 does would then check that the agreement between the identity of the equipment 2, stored in it, and one of the identities from a list of similar equipment, with access authorized, list present in the authorization data read in badge 2 and necessary in the event that the gates cannot be trivialized, due to the existence of several protected areas accessible to groups of people at least partially different.

Except for the interface means 11, 111 and 15, it will be understood that the rest circuits of equipment 1 can be deported, for example in a computer in a central site, common to a plurality of such equipment 1.

Claims (9)

1. An equipment for controlling the access to a protected area of a wearer of a badge (2), the badge (2) including

   memory means (8) for storing a particular physical characteristic of the wearer, and

   radio means (4) linked to the memory means (8), the equipment including

   radio means (11, 111), designed to read from the memory means (8) of the badge,
   the equipment being characterized by the fact that it comprises

   means (15, 16) for entering and identifying the relevant particular physical characteristic of the wearer of the badge,

   means of comparison (17) linked at input to the radio means (11, 111) and to the entering and identification means (15, 16) and, at output, to

   means (20) for locking access.
2. The equipment as claimed in claim 1, in which, the badge (2) including means (7) for storing access authorization data, there are provided badge authorization data validation means (12, 13) linked to the input of said locking means (20).
3. The equipment as claimed in claim 2, in which the badge (2) being designed so as to transmit the authorization data in scrambled form, the validation means (12) are designed to descramble these data.
4. The equipment as claimed in claim 3, in which the validation means (13) are designed to validate the authorization data on the basis of their contents alone.
5. The equipment as claimed in one of claims 2 to 4, in which the validation means (13) include comparator means designed to compare the authorization data read with counterpart data stored in a database of the equipment.
6. The equipment as claimed in one of claims 1 to 5, in which the identification means (15, 16) are designed to capture the image of the retina of the wearer of the badge.
7. The equipment as claimed in one of claims 1 to 5, in which the identification means (15, 16) are designed to capture the image of a print of the skin of the wearer.
8. The equipment as claimed in claim 7, in which the identification means (15, 16) are designed to capture the image of a fingerprint.
9. A badge (2) for controlling access to a protected area for the equipment of one of claims 1 to 8, including radio means (4) operated by storage means (8) characterized by the fact that the storage means (8) are designed to transmit, to an access control equipment, identification data representative of a physical characteristic specific to an owner of the badge (2).

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