A general Purpose Image-Based Electors Smart Card Using an Enhanced Least Significant Bit Steganographic Method for Information Hiding: A case study of the Kenyan Electoral Process.

Abstract

To legally participate in any political elections in Kenya, one must of necessity be in possession of at least two documents i.e. the elector’s card and the national identity card. Both of these documents make use of the bearer’s face photograph and some textual identification information. The unprecedented growth in digital imaging and processing technologies have meant that, with little or no knowledge of the technology involved one is conveniently able to tamper with photographs and identity information on such documents resulting in cases of fraud e.g double registration and voting which have consistently marred our electoral process. In this paper we propose the use of a general purpose smart card based identification document during elections. The textual identification information of the card bearer and his or her biometric data are embedded in his or her face photograph using an enhanced, randomized least significant bit steganographic method. An experimental design was setup to determine the effectiveness of the method by comparing the original and the reconstructed images’ statistical characteristics to ensure that no notable differences exist. The experimental results show improved security of the biometric data and personal identification details.