BS ISO IEC 29109-1 is a framework document for the conformance standards of each of the biometric modality interchange standards of 19794. It would be of interest to any developer or other organisation wanting to understand the basis of biometric conformance testing. It is to be used in conjunction with the detailed conformance testing standard of the specific biometric modality/modalities of interest.
BS ISO/IEC 29109-1 specifies the concepts, test types and conformance testing methodologies to test biometric data interchange records, as specified in ISO/IEC 19794, or computer algorithms that create biometric data interchange records.
Part 1 of BS ISO/IEC 29109 defines two types (A and B) and three levels (1, 2 and 3) of conformance testing, but it only provides a detailed description and methodology for the three levels of Type A testing. In the case of the first two levels, there are many common test elements, and so the assertion language for specifying Level 1 and Level 2 test assertions is defined in this part of BS ISO/IEC 29109.
BS ISO/IEC 29109 is not concerned with testing of other characteristics of biometric products or other types of testing of biometric products (i.e. acceptance, performance, robustness, security).
BS ISO/IEC 29109-1 explicitly does not cover the following areas:
- Detailed test elements and assertions or descriptions of any mandatory standard datasets required for testing, which are provided in the other parts of ISO/IEC 29109, each of which specifies conformance testing for a specific base standard
- Testing whether implementations under test (IUTs) that claim to be able to use conformant biometric data interchange records can correctly process such biometric data interchange records (Type B testing).
BS ISO/IEC 19794 is a multi-part international standard that specifies a biometric data interchange format for different biometric modalities or technologies. It is expected that future parts of BS ISO/IEC 19794 for additional modalities or technologies will be developed. End users of biometric systems desire to use BS ISO/IEC 19794 and other standards to ensure that components of the biometric system can be substituted with other components from different vendors with a minimum of effort, and also to ensure that biometric data produced by one system can be used by another system. In order to achieve this, it is critical that systems claimed to conform to a standard actually are conformant, and thus there is a need for conformance testing methodology standards for each of the biometric data interchange formats specified in BS ISO/IEC 19794, in order to provide a reasonable degree of assurance that a conformance claim has validity.
In fact, no test can be absolutely comprehensive and prove that a given system is conformant under all possible circumstances, especially when there are optional components of the standard. A well designed conformance test can, however, test all of the most likely sources of problems and ensure that the implementation under test conforms under a reasonable set of circumstances, giving assurance, but not a guarantee, of conformance.
There are many different types of conformance testing that may be appropriate for the various parts of BS ISO/IEC 19794. Some of these tests are highly specific to each data interchange format but some of them have many common elements across all of the formats. Therefore, it appears that a multi-part conformance testing standard, BS ISO/IEC 29109, will be useful. This part of BS ISO/IEC 29109 describes the different types of conformance testing. It then goes on to provide details of the common elements for defining test assertions.
BS ISO/IEC 29109-1 also provides guidelines for conducting the tests and reporting the results of the tests. The specific tests and assertions for each biometric data interchange format are left to the subsequent parts, one for each part of BS ISO/IEC 19794.
Contents of BS ISO/IEC 29109-1 include:- Introduction
- Scope
- Conformance
- Normative references
- Terms and definitions
- Abbreviated terms
- Conformance testing framework
- Limitations
- Managing data records
- Conformance testing types
- Conformance testing levels
- Hierarchy of Conformance Tests
- Level 1 — Data format conformance
- Level 2 — Internal consistency checking
- Level 3 — Content checking
- Sample data sets for Level 3 conformance testing
- Common assertion descriptors for Level 1 and 2 testing
- General considerations
- Assertions for big-endian encoding
- Assertion element descriptions
- Purpose of common assertion descriptions
- Field Names
- Operators
- Operands
- Other assertion elements
- Conformance testing and reporting methodology
- Conformance requirements and implementation conformance statement
- Necessity of clear description of requirements and capabilities
- Claimed conformance and declared conformance
- Requirements of the base standard
- Explanations of columns in requirements table
- Level 1 and Level 2 conformance assertions
- Explanations of columns in Level 1 and Level 2 assertions table
- Test procedures
- Basic test workflow
- Minimum number of BDIRs and IBDRs required
- Test reports
- Purpose of the test report
- Minimum content of the test report
- Bibliography
