Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2010 71 Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Secure human face authentication for mobile e-government transactions Rachid Benlamri* Department of Software Engineering, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Rd, Thunder Bay, Ontario, P7B 5E1, Canada E-mail: rbenlamr@lakeheadu.ca *Corresponding author Wael Adi IDA, Technical University of Braunschweig, Hans-Sommer St. 66, D-38106 Braunschweig, Germany E-mail: w.adi@tu-bs.de Ali Al-Qayedi and Ali Dawood Department of Computer Engineering, Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research, P.O. Box 573 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates E-mail: alqayedi@kustar.ac.ae E-mail: dawood@kustar.ac.ae Abstract: This paper describes a joint biometric-cryptographic authentication system for mobile e-government transactions. The system can be used to verify, prove, and enforce ‘mobile contracts’. The proposed system offers a cryptographical mutually-authenticated image exchange and face identification scheme, as well as remote signing of documents by transferring an authenticated image for personal face and signature operation. The system integrates two physically secured entities, a mobile device camera and a smart-card, both certified by some authority to enable undeniable visualised ‘mobile signature’. The result is a secured, traceable e-government infeasible-to-clone virtual person in a form that can be seen as a trustable ‘e-officer’. Keywords: human face identification; mobile communication; mobile and ubiquitous computing; secure electronic signature; cryptography. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Benlamri, R., Adi, W., Al-Qayedi, A. and Dawood, A. (2010) ‘Secure human face authentication for mobile e-government transactions’, Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp.71–87.