Special Publication 800-76-1 Biometric Specification for Personal Identity Verification
1. Introduction
1.1 Authority
This document has been developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in furtherance
of its statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) of 2002,
Public Law 107-347.
NIST is responsible for developing standards and guidelines, including minimum requirements, for providing
adequate information security for all agency operations and assets, but such standards and guidelines shall not
apply to national security systems. This recommendation is consistent with the requirements of the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130, Section 8b(3), Securing Agency Information Systems, as
analyzed in A-130, Appendix IV: Analysis of Key Sections. Supplemental information is provided in A-130,
Appendix III.
This recommendation has been prepared for use by federal agencies. It may be used by non-governmental
organizations on a voluntary basis and is not subject to copyright. Nothing in this document should be taken to
contradict standards and guidelines made mandatory and binding on Federal agencies by the Secretary of
Commerce under statutory authority. Nor should this recommendation be interpreted as altering or superseding
the existing authorities of the Secretary of Commerce, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, or any
other Federal official.
1.2 Purpose and scope
FIPS 201 [FIPS], Personal Identity Verification (PIV) for Federal Employees and Contractors, defines
procedures for the PIV lifecycle activities including identity proofing, registration, PIV Card issuance, and PIV
Card usage. FIPS also defines the structure of an identity credential which includes biometric data.
Requirements concerning cryptographic protection of the biometric data are also described in [FIPS] and in
[800-78].
This document contains technical specifications for biometric data mandated in [FIPS]. These specifications
reflect the design goals of interoperability and performance of the PIV Card. This specification addresses image
acquisition to support the background check, fingerprint template creation, retention, and authentication. The
goals are addressed by citing biometric standards normatively and by enumerating requirements where the
standards include options and branches. In such cases, a biometric profile can be used to declare what content is
required and what is optional. This document goes further by constraining implementers' interpretation of the
standards. Such restrictions are designed to ease implementation, assure conformity, facilitate interoperability,
and ensure performance, in a manner tailored for PIV applications.
The biometric data specification in this document is the mandatory format for biometric data carried in the PIV
Data Model (Appendix A of SP 800-73-1). Biometric data used only outside the PIV Data Model is not within
the scope of this standard.
This document does however specify that any biometric data in the PIV Data Model shall be embedded in the
Common Biometric Exchange Formats Framework (CBEFF) structure of section 6. This document provides an
overview of the strategy that can be used for testing conformance to the standard. It is not meant to be a
comprehensive set of test requirements that can be used for certification or demonstration of compliance to the
specifications in this document.
1.3 Audience, assumptions, and overview
This document is targeted at Federal agencies and implementers of PIV systems. Readers are assumed to have a
working knowledge of biometric standards and applications. This document defines, in section 3, the fingerprint
acquisition process, the format of the PIV Card minutiae templates, and a format for agency-optional image
retention. In section 4 it puts requirements on fingerprint mediated verification implementations, and specifies,
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