Guarded Biometric Access to Safe Deposit Lockers Description of the Project

The safe deposit locker is a convenient way provided by the financial institution to place the valuable belongings and documents of the user. This system operates using the concept of dual keys - one provided to the user and the other held by the manager. The main aim of this dual key system is to efficiently operate the entire safe deposit system under the control of one manager of a branch allotted by that particular financial institution's central regional office. The entire system hinges on the authenticity provided and assured by the branch manager. There is lot of tedious process involved in the current system of operation of the safe deposit lockers. The manual allocation of responsibility to the manager by central regional office (in a daily basis) based on the availability and the on-spot manager approval for operation of the safe deposit lockers by the customer are some cumbersome process involved in the current system. The main intention behind the manager on-spot approval is to manually authenticate each individual before operation of the respective locker. The manager is supposed to allow only the owner of the locker to gain access to it. These intentions lead to the birth of the dual key system in the safe deposit lockers. The lockers operating under these enforcements are kept in a separate enclosure called the strong room. Access to this strong room lock is only with the manager. So the manager has to maintain a separate lock for each of the safe deposit lockers inside the strong room and a lock for strong room. The access for these is manually determined by the central regional office on the availability of manager at each branch in daily basis.

So a convenient way has to be proposed to handle the authenticity along with the security mechanism enforced in accordance with the law abided in course with the enforcements of a particular country. This would lead the system to authenticate each individual in a more secure and guaranteed way along with the simplifying and reducing the work load on the manager's responsible for that particular branch operating the safe deposit lockers. The intention lies also on the fact of reducing the operations involved in assignment of individual for operating the strong room of particular branch and simplifying the manager's responsibility in on-spot authentication of individual and granting them to access their specified safe deposit locker.

Proposed Model:

There are few major assumptions involved in implementing the system. These assumptions are the association of the biometric with the staff id in the regional office repository and the compulsory association of the customer availing for the safe deposit lockers an account in that particular financial institution . There are two major repositories designed, one the regional office repository containing the staff id of all the managers along with their biometric and password and along with the information of association to the safe locker deposits (if any, in daily basis) to the particular branch. The other repository is the master repository which contains all the information pertaining to the customer's like biometric and account number. Once the user avails the safe deposit locker service from a particular branch, the locker id and the password to open the locker is also updated. The main functioning of the system could be split into three main phases - the Manager unlocking the strong room, manager unlocking the locker of a particular user using the locker id and the user unlocking their safe deposit lockers.

First Phase - Manager unlocking the strong room - Manager unlocking the strong room is done through the biometric and password validation of the manager assigned to that particular branch for operating the safe deposit lockers by the central regional office. Once a manager has been designated to handle the safe deposit's operation, then based on the request from the customer to operate their safety deposit locker, the manger provides the staff id and the corresponding biometric followed by the password assigned to them. Then the validation whether the manager is assigned to operate the safe deposit locker by the central regional office is carried and then followed by the authenticity validation of the manager. If it passes the validation tests, the authenticity is said to have been established and the strong room lock opens, else the central regional office is reported about the illegal access.

Second Phase - Manager unlocking the locking of a particular safe deposit locker -Once the manager unlocking the strong room is done through the biometric and password validation of the manager assigned to that particular branch, then based on the request from the user to operate their locker, this phase comes into picture. Once a manager has completed the unlocking of strong room, then based on the request from the customer to operate their safety deposit locker, the manger provides the locker id for the customer to unlock and access their safety locker.

Third Phase - User unlocking their safe deposit locker - Once the manager unlocked the strong room and provided the locker id this phase begins. The user is requested to enter the account number followed by the biometric. The account number is asked to initially confirm if the user has availed the facility or not. The password is then asked to the user. If the user enters the reverse of the password (non-palindrome), then the emergency situation is detected and the near-by patrol is alerted. Else the biometric and the password is validated and the user is allowed to access the safe deposit locker after the successful validation.

Functional Flow

The entire operation hinges mainly on the successful validation of the details of the end user and the branch manager. A branch having the safe deposit locker is assigned daily a manger based on the availability by the central regional office. Then the manager's staff id is assigned to the particular branch strong room lock from the central regional office repository. It is mandatory for the customers to have an account before requesting for a locker from a particular financial institution. Then the user is assigned locker by the central regional office based on the availability of the safe deposit locker and the user choice of the branch in which the user wants to have a safe deposit locker. Then the user biometric is collected and provided with a non-palindrome password and updated against their account number in the master repository. Also the assigned locker id is updated at the master repository. Access to both the master and the regional office is restricted to the central regional office officials and only a read access is provided to the branch manager assigned in-charge of safe deposit locker operations for that particular day. The main aim of the restricted access is to avoid the misuse of information. Once the user requests for the access, the manager has to unlock the strong room lock by providing the valid biometric and the password corresponding to their staff id. Once the information provided is validated, strong room lock is opened and there is no necessity for the manger to perform on-spot validation of the customer to check their individual authenticity. It is because the authentication is performed by the safe deposit locker system itself based on the biometric of the safe deposit locker holder. Then the manger provides the locker id to be accessed by the individual. So once the biometric of the user is validated against the corresponding account number and the password entered by the customer, then the access to that particular safe deposit locker id is given to the customer. Thus the authenticity of the customer is ensured along with a dual tier authentication mechanism for access to strong room and the safe deposit locker (one by the manager and other by user operating the safe deposit locker) is provided.

Failures Encountered in the Existing System:

Exploiting the lack of personal weakness of the customers, duplicating the role of a distinct individual, accessing customer's personal possession (the keys of the locker), illegal access to the strong room by any individual other then manager, and the lack of an internal security mechanism for the complete authentication phenomenon are the main failures in the existing system. An Important failure in the existing system is the lack of the complete authentication phenomenon for the customer before gaining access to the safe deposit lockers. Any individual is not completely authenticated before they are granted the access to any particular safe deposit lockers. Their authenticity is only determined with the on-spot authentication (verification) done by the manager. The safety mechanism is only based on the dual key provided one to the customer and other to the manager. The true verification of their identity with any other available means is not the concern of the current operation for the safe deposit lockers. As the exploitation of the weakness of any individual customer with the habit of illegal possession of any individual property has risen exponentially over past few years, the demand for multi-fold distinct and unique authentication has occurred.

Remedies to Failures Encountered:

There is a secure complete authentication of the customer before they access the safe deposit locker. Complete authentication is provided with the help of the validation of the biometric of the customer and manager provided against the respective locker id for the customer to gain access on the same. The manual allocation of responsibility to the manager by central regional office (in a daily basis) based on the availability and the on-spot manager approval for operation of the safe deposit lockers by the customer are abolished completely in the proposed system. Instead the allocation is done by some officials dynamically from the central regional office based on the availability of the manager in the particular branch holding the safe deposit lockers. The allocation of the manager means the allocation of the staff id corresponding to the lock on the strong room and lock on the each safe deposit locker of that particular branch. Thus the biometric corresponding to the particular staff id only could be used to unlock the strong room lock, thus allowing the first tier of authentication to happen. This system reduces the complete reliability on the dual key system in the safe deposit lockers. The necessity of the manager to maintain a separate lock for each of the safe deposit lockers inside the strong room and a lock for strong room is thus avoided. Also once a locker id has been assigned to a particular account holder, then the unlocking the user locks becomes possible only with the biometric of that particular customer, thus providing the second tier of authentication mechanism. In case of any adverse emergency the non-palindrome password could be entered by the customer in the reverse order thus alerting the patrol. Security with complete automated authenticated system thus could come into existence. If the biometric or the password mismatch happens for more than allowed framework of time, by both the manager and the user, the patrol and the regional office could be alerted.

CLAIMS

1. I claim that there is a secure and complete individual authentication and validation of the customer before they access the safe deposit lockers.

2. I claim that the complete authentication is provided with the help of the validation of the biometric of the customer and manager provided against the respective locker id for the customer to gain access on the same.

3. I claim that the manual allocation of responsibility to the manager by central regional office (in a daily basis) based on the availability at that particular branch and the on-spot manager approval for operation of the safe deposit lockers by the customer are abolished completely in the proposed system.

4. I claim that there is dual tier authentication mechanism in place, one the biometric corresponding to the particular staff id only could be used to unlock the strong room lock and other after assigning a locker id to a particular account holder, unlocking the user locks only with the biometric and password of that particular customer.

5. I claim that the proposed system reduces the complete reliability on the dual key system for the safety of the deposit lockers.

6. I claim that the necessity of the manager to maintain a separate lock for each of the safe deposit lockers inside the strong room and a lock for strong room is thus avoided,

7. I claim that there is an additional high level security component in case of any adverse emergency i.e., the non-palindrome password could be entered by the customer in the reverse order thus alerting the patrol.