WO2011016710A1

WO2011016710A1 - Method for baby-parent identification

Info

Publication number: WO2011016710A1
Application number: PCT/MY2010/000133
Authority: WO
Inventors: Mei Kuan Lim; Kim Meng Liang; Sze Ling Tang
Original assignee: Mimos Berhad
Priority date: 2009-08-05
Filing date: 2010-07-28
Publication date: 2011-02-10

Abstract

A method for baby-parent identification within a maternity facility is disclosed wherein a baby's unique identify is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from the baby, one of its parent, and optionally another parent or a guardian. The method comprises enrolling the parent's biometric data at first pre-natal visit to the facility, verifying the parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data at each subsequent visits or admissions to the first facility, enrolling the baby's biometric data upon birth and associating or correlating same with the parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data; and verifying the baby's identity and/or parent's identity prior to allowing each post-natal activity within the facility. The biometric data may be any one or combination of footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape, voiceprint, and face recognition. When the method is embodied in a system, suitable electronic sensing devices may be deployed to capture image or data according to requisite intrinsic feature.

Description

Method for baby-parent identification

TECHNICAL FIELD

[001] This invention concerns a method for establishing baby-parent identification using biometric data throughout the neo-natal period. It concerns the use of multimodal biometric data which may be taken from a parent as well as from the baby and fused into a biometric data. Verification of the parent and/or baby is requested prior to conducting activities throughout the neo-natal period.

BACKGROUND ART

[002] Identifying a baby by its biometric features and tagging it to its mother or another rightful parent or guardian has been a challenge to administrators of neonatal facilities such as hospitals generally and maternity wards specifically in view of the constant possible occurrence of mistaken identity, baby-swapping and kidnapping within the facility. While advances in biomedical science has made DNA sequencing as the most reliable and specific genotyping biometric data for identification of an individual which is currently the most definitive identification of progeny, it requires tissue sample and is therefore invasive. With its processing time, it is rendered unsuitable for situations where instant or quick verification is sought.

[003] While many of the morphological biometric features such as foot print, palm print, finger print, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape, or face recognition; or behavioural biometrics such as voiceprint, keyboard typing rhythm, etc. may be sensed, acquired and registered to be matched subsequently by state-of-art biometric systems, capturing corresponding biometric features remains elusive for creatures as tiny as a newborn. [004] This is acknowledged in Weingaertner (2007) wherein a paltry rate of 0 - 20% of infants' footprints (such as that imprinted in the maternity ward's presently popular practice of issuing informal or congratulatory birth documents to the parents) has been positively identified. This paper also finds that the rate may be increased to up to 67.7% for palm prints and that fingerprinting the baby was impractical due to the prints obtained being too tiny and easily deformed upon contact despite its features remain unchanged through the life of a person.

[005] For this reason, baby's biometric features are typically not enrolled in a conventional baby-parent identification biometric system and that the more popular systems currently employed does not use biometrics at all. The prevalent systems employ physical tagging means such as tamper-proof wrist or ankle bracelet or loop-type seal represented by U.S. Patent No. 6,655,063 (Goodin); clamp secured onto umbilical cord as represented by U.S. Patent No. 5,006,830 (Merritt), No. 5,440,295 (Ciewisz) and No. 5,608,382 (Webb); radio- frequency (RF) devices for movement monitoring as represented by European Patent No. 1,190,401 (Radomsky), U.S. Patent No. 6,028,519 (Dessureau) and U.S. Patent No. 4,853,692 (WoIk), or combinations thereof. These non- biometric methods are easier to implement and more cost effective compare to the biometric methods such as PCT Publication No. WO 1990/08366 (Clayden), or physiological or genotyping identification methods such as U.S. Patent No. 5,876,926 (Beecham) and No. 6,187,540 (Staub) which are tedious, costly and more difficult to implement. [006] Robustness of conventional identification systems are also being tested if either one of the baby- mother pair is to be separated from each other due to one being checked out but the other retained at the hospital. If the mother is retained, then the other parent, guardian or family member needs to be verified as the authorised person to take the baby away. Similarly, if the baby is retained and the mother is discharged, the tagging of baby to its mother is broken and authorisation protocol for its future activities in the hospital needs to be rearranged.

[007] To improve on the robustness of biometric methods in case of failure to verify a single type of biometric feature, multimodal biometric platform has been proposed such as in U.S. Patent No. 2006/104485 (Miller) wherein a combination of facial, iris and fingerprint recognition are employed. It should be noted, however, that this prior art focuses more on the networking of the various modes of biometric search engine transceiving of data across the internet. More recently, Sanderson (2008) has also proposed a fusion of speech and face data in the context of multi-modal biometric verification systems such as that for accessing Automatic Teller Machines (ATM).

SUMMARY OF DISCLOSURE

[008] It is obvious that, with some malevolent effort, the foregoing physical tags and devices may be duplicated, removed or falsified to enable a felon to carry out baby-swapping or kidnapping from the maternity facility. The "key" to or means for identification of the baby and mother should not be made available in the form of a physical attachment such as an RF, NFC (near field communications) or contactless card or device employed as wrist or ankle bracelet so that theft, tampering or duplication opportunity of such physical or external devices is eliminated. [009] It is thus desirable that identification "key" be always present on the subjects themselves, such as biometric features. Our invention therefore endeavours to provide a baby- mother identification method that uses biometric features for verification in which the features are always present with the subject and does not need any invasive sampling or even the need for any device-wearing or tagging.

[010] To this end, as a broad and general concept, our invention provides for a method for baby-parent identification within a first facility wherein a baby's identity is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from the baby, one of its parent, and optionally its other parent or a guardian, wherein the method comprising the steps of:

(a) enrolling the parent's biometric data at first pre-natal visit to the first facility;

(b) verifying the parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data at each subsequent visits or admissions to the first facility;

(c) enrolling the baby's biometric data upon birth and associating or

correlating same with the parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data; and

(d) verifying the baby's identity and/or parent's identity prior to allowing each post-natal activity within the first facility.

[011] Preferably, the parent's biometric data is verified before allowing a prenatal or post-natal activity to proceed. The biometric data is preferably any one or combination of his/her footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape, voiceprint, and face recognition. In a preferred embodiment, the parent's biometric data is independently verified or cross-verified with a third party or external biometric database, including any one or combination of a national, civil or criminal identification registration database. [012] In one aspect of our method, the parent's biometric data enrolment in step (a) and verification in step (b) above are implemented as Parent Identification Process comprising a Data Enrolment Process component and a Data Identification Process component. The Data Enrolment Process component preferably includes acquiring a sample of a biometric feature, processing the sample to extract intrinsic features and to represent same as enrolled identification data in an enrolment template, and storing the template in a database in a retrievable manner for verification. The Data Identification Process component preferably includes comparing and matching a parent's biometric data being input as a verification template against enrolled data stored in a biometric database.

[013] In another aspect, the baby's biometric data enrolled is any one or combination of its footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape or voiceprint, and face recognition. Preferably, a post-natal activity involving the mother's presence only is allowed to proceed upon verification of the mother's identification without calling for verification of the baby's identification. Alternatively, a post-natal activity involving the baby with or without the mother's presence is only allowed to proceed upon verification of both the mother's and the baby's identifications. Preferably, the aforesaid post-natal activity is discharging from the first facility of the baby and/or the mother.

[014] In another alternative, a post-natal activity involving at least the baby is only allowed to proceed upon verification of the baby's identification and identification of the other parent or guardian besides the mother. In the event of verification failure, an investigation is preferably initiated to probe the identification mismatch for possible malfeasance, system or data failure.

[015] In respect of apparatus required to enable our method, suitable electronic sensing devices are deployed to capture image or data according to requisite intrinsic feature. Preferably, devices with different resolution or sensitivity are used for the same intrinsic features of baby and of parent, i.e. for the same biometric feature, the acquisition, processing to extract intrinsic feature and representing same from respective samples of baby and parent are different. The biometric feature extraction and representation may include any one or combination of finger-, palm- or foot-print patterns, friction ridge minutiae, print measurements, shape, colour and vein patterns.

[016] In yet another aspect of our method, the parent's biometric data is based on a single feature whereas the baby's biometric data is based on a plurality of features. The plurality of features are acquired and represented in a fused, combined or transformed manner to result in a canonical biometric template. The verification of a parent's biometric data is preferably conducted with template matching on a 1 -to- many basis while the verification of the baby's biometric data may be conducted with template matching on a 1-to-l basis, upon verification of the parent's identity.

[017] A further aspect of our invention is to embody our method as a system for baby-parent identification within a first facility wherein a baby's unique identify is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from the baby, one of its parent, and optionally its other parent or a guardian, the system comprising (a) a data enrolment process including data acquisition, feature extraction and representation and data registration steps; and

(b) a data identification process including data acquisition, feature

extraction and representation, biometric template matching and decision-making steps

characterized in that

(i) the feature extraction and representation step for the baby comprises extracting at least one feature as an element for fusion with one other feature to form a unique biometric identity as the baby's enrolment biometric template;

(ii) the data registration step for the baby includes associating the baby's unique biometric identity to its parent as identified and storing the same in a biometric database;

(iii) the template matching step for the baby includes performing a one-to- one matching while the parent template matching step performing one-to-many matching;

(iv) the baby-parent identification is invoked at every neonatal activity including pre-natal, nascence and post-natal stages by verifying at least the identity of at least one of the parent.

[018] Preferably, our proposed system is implemented in an immigration checkpoint, port, airport or public transportation or second or subsequent medical facility visited after the baby-parent identification has been first established in the aforesaid methods.

LIST OF ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS

[019] For a better understanding of our invention, the following drawings are provided to accompany the detailed description that follows to illustrate specific and exemplary embodiments of our method, without limiting or constraining its general working principles.

[020] FIGURE 1 shows schematically the 3 main stages of natal activities covered in our invention. [021] FIGURE 2 is an overview of the Parent Identification Process component of our method.

[022] FIGURE 3 illustrates schematically the process flow in the pre-natal stage.

[023] FIGURE 4 represents schematically the process flow in the nascence stage.

[024] FIGURE 5 exemplifies the process flow in the post-natal process. [025] FIGURE 6 denotes the process flow of the Data Enrolment Process of our method.

[026] FIGURE 7 shows the process flow of the Data Identification Process of our method.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

[027] Generally speaking, neonatal activities or services provided by a maternity or medical facility may be arbitrarily divided into 3 stages, i.e. (i) prenatal which refers to the activities before and during pregnancy, (ii) nascence, which refers to the activities during childbirth, and (iii) postnatal, which refers to the activities after the birth of the baby. While conventional methods initiate the baby-parent tagging only in the nascence stage, or enforce verification only at the postnatal process, our method pre-empts any early impersonation or deception by initiating our process at the pre-natal stage, in fact, from the first neonatal visit by the mother. In this invention, the term "parent" may refer to the "mother" or/and "father" while the term "infant", "baby" and "newborn" may be used interchangeably.

[028] In line with the aforementioned concept of our invention, our method for baby-parent identification does not require any invasive steps on either subject and does not require any device or tag to be worn by either the baby or parent within the natal or maternity facility where the verification is implemented such as a maternity ward, specifically, or hospital generally.

Generally, the baby's unique identity is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from the baby, one of its parent, and optionally the other parent or a guardian. This would include the steps of enrolling the parent's biometric data at first pre-natal visit to the maternity facility, and verifying the parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data at each subsequent visits or admissions to the first facility. Upon birth, the baby's biometric data is enrolled and correlated to its parent's identity based on the parent's biometric data already enrolled. Thereafter, the baby's identity and/or parent's identity is verified prior to allowing each post-natal activity within the maternity facility. [029] A cornerstone of our method is its implementation which requires obtaining approval of a pre-natal activity wherein the parent's biometric data is verified before allowing the pre-natal activity to proceed. Similarly, obtaining approval of a post-natal activity is required wherein the parent's biometric data is verified before allowing the post-natal activity to proceed.

[030] The initial process to be invoked in our proposed method is the Parent Identification Process wherein the first time parent or user's biometric data is enrolled into the database via the Data Enrolment Process. For existing parent or user whom information has already been enrolled in the database, a Data Identification Process verifies a parent's identity via comparison of verification template and enrolment template. A person which identity is verified is allowed to perform neonatal activities which can be classified into 3 main categories; the i) Pre-natal Process which refers to the medical care or activity for women before or during pregnancy, U) Nascence Process which refers to the medical care or activity for women and newborn during the process of giving birth, and Ui) Post-natal Process which refers to the medical care or activity for women and/or baby after the birth of a child. These 3 stages are schematically shown in FIGURE 1. [031] The Parent Identification Process is illustrated schematically in overview in FIGURE 2. Although the example of biometric data used in this drawing, as well as in subsequent illustrations, is fingerprint, it is to be understood that other biometric features may be used including footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape, voiceprint, and face recognition. For face

recognition, conventional methods such as the Eigenface algorithm or FRVT 2006 protocol may be used.

[032] As shown in FIG. 2, if the parent is a new user to our proposed biometric system, the parent's biometric data will be input into the Data Enrolment Process. The Data Enrolment Process will first acquire, process, and store the parent's biometric data in the form of enrolment template in the Biometric Database for ongoing use. Otherwise, if the parent is an existing user, the biometric data will be fed into the Data Identification Process which basically compares and matches the input parent's biometric data, presented in form of verification template, against the data available in the database. If the verification template of the parent successfully matches the enrolment template which was previously stored in the database during the enrolment process, the identity of the parent is verified and subsequent neonatal activity is allowed. Otherwise, the activity is rejected and the process terminates. Alternatively, the parent's biometric data is independently verified or cross- verified with a third party or external biometric database, including any one or combination of a national (e.g. National Registration Department's records of thumb prints), civil (e.g. EPF or banks' database) or criminal identification registration database such as FBI's AFIS database.

[033] In FIGURE 3, the process flow of the pre-natal stage is illustrated while FIGURE 4 shows the process flow of the nascence stage. As soon as the baby is born, its biometric data should be enrolled and associated with the parent. Subsequently, baby's verification template is compared against its enrolled template. The verification of parent and/or baby's identities may then be performed in the Data Identification Process. Just as in the case of the parent's biometric data, the newborn's biometric data is shown in FIG. 4 to be palmprint or footprint but may be substituted with other types of biometric features such as its fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality (e.g. cleft lip or palate), ear shape or voiceprint, and face recognition. A birthmark may be more easily noted as unique and may therefore serve as a significant biometric feature to be incorporated into the biometric data of the baby. A fusion of biometric features comprising a plurality of such features and/or combined with a parent's biometric feature may assist in providing a unique identity of the infant.

[034] FIGURE 5 illustrates the process flow of the post-natal process of our invention wherein activities which require the participation of both the mother and baby, or which require the mother's attendance due to illness or other medical necessity. Due to such circumstances it may be vital to allow a prescribed activity which involves the mother only to take place even without the availability of the baby's biometric data. In the Post-natal Process, if an intended activity is amongst the predefined maternity activity involving only the mother, the system may be set to allow the carrying out of the activity once the mother's identity is verified.

[035] If the intended post-natal activity involves both baby and mother such as discharge of baby and mother from the hospital or maternity ward, the entire process of acquiring baby's biometric data and identification of baby's identity against that of the mother's identity must be performed. This is crucial to prevent baby abduction and to ensure that the baby is taken home by the biological mother. Where the baby is to be discharged before the mother, the father's identity can be used to allow discharge of baby with the father as an alternate parent. The process for father-baby identification is similar to the mother-baby identification. There is thus a provision in our baby identification system to include not only the mother but also other members of the family pre-approved to act as its guardian, for example the father, in the event that the mother must leave the baby in the hospital due to illness of the baby, or her illness may require her to remain in the hospital while the baby is to be discharged. [036] In the unfortunate situation where the mother is deceased shortly after the birth of the baby, conventional systems may often lead to the problem where baby in a medical facility has no other family member linked to the identification on the baby and the hospital is faced with the task of impromptu verification of the father, guardian or another family member. To avoid such unreliable impromptu verification, in our proposed system, once a baby's identity matches the alternate parent's identity, subsequent post-natal activity such as bringing out baby from the nursery for feeding or discharge of baby without the mother's verification may be allowed. [037] The Data Enrolment Process will now be further explained as comprising 3 main sub-processes or components, i.e. (i) Data Acquisition, (ii) Feature Extraction and Representation and (iii) Data Registration. As shown in FIGURE 6, the 2 latter components, i.e. Feature Extraction and

Representation and Data Registration, may be separately provided for the baby and parent as there may be significant differences between the nature of biometric data to be acquired from the respective infant and adult subjects. The data or images acquired through the Image Acquisition component are directly dependent on the intrinsic features to be extracted from the subject. As such the electronic devices or sensors used to capture the data or images may have different sensitivity, resolution or specification depending on the intrinsic physical aspects of the biometric data concerned. As described earlier, the exemplary biometric feature of parent refers to fingerprint whereas the biometric feature of the baby refers to a fusion of biometric features.

Accordingly, the sensors used to acquire the parent's and the baby's biometric data may differ. [038] The live scan images acquired are then processed digitally before it is fed into the Feature Extraction and Representation component to create a collection of features thereafter known as biometric template. The sensors may apply various technologies such as optical imaging, thermal imaging, ultrasonic imaging and passive capacitance or active capacitance imaging. Similar to the existing fingerprint scanners in the market, scanners having larger dimensions may be used to acquire visual images of footprints and palm prints using the same device for baby's data acquisition. [039] After capturing the necessary images, the digitally processed images are then fed into the second component, Feature Extraction and

Representation. This component extracts the key features from the images to create a unique biometric template for each individual. Among the features that can be extracted includes but is not limited to printing patterns, friction ridge minutiae, printing measurements and shape, colour and vein patterns. As shown in FIGURE 6, the Feature Extraction and Representation component may provide for separate processing of the baby and parent's data due to the dissimilarity of the features extracted. Parent's biometric data involves only a single feature whereas the baby's biometric data involves a fusion of multiple feature extraction. The biometric template for the parent is derived from a single feature whereas the fusion of more than one biometric feature of the baby is necessary to result in a unique canonical biometric template.

[040] The final component in the Data Enrolment Process is the Data Registration. In this component, the biometric template created in the earlier component is registered or associated to the particular individual or subject. For Baby Data Registration, the biometric template created for the baby will be registered in the database and associated or correlated with the parent's information. On the other hand, in the Parent Data Registration sub- component, the biometric template of the parent is registered in the database independently. Each new registration of the parent's biometric information into the database is associated with a unique identifier. In addition, relevant information of the parent such as name, identification number and etc. are also registered and stored into the database. It is to be emphasized that every activity in the system which relates to the baby would require at least a parent's identity to be verified before allowing that activity to proceed in order to prevent mismatch, swapping or abduction possibility. The biometric template of baby and parent stored in the biometric database serves as a reference during the identification process and is often referred to as the enrolment template.

[041] The Data Identification Process, as illustrated in FIGURE 7, comprises 4 sub-processes or components, i.e. (i) Data Acquisition, (ii) Feature Extraction and Representation, (iii) Biometric Template Matching, and (iv) Decision- Making. Similar to the Data Enrolment Process, the (i) Feature Extraction and Representation and (ii) Biometric Template Matching processes are separately provided for the baby and parent for the purpose of distinguishing the differences between an adult's and a baby's biometric features. Otherwise, in other aspects, the Data Acquisition and Feature Extraction and Representation components function in the same manner as the corresponding components described in the Data Enrolment Process where biometric data of the baby or parent is acquired and a biometric template to represent the baby or parent is created.

[042] In the "Biometric Template Matching" component, the input template is compared against all of the templates which have been registered and stored in the biometric database. In the Parent Biometric Template Matching subcomponent, the biometric template of the parent acquired in Data Acquisition (which is also known as verification template) is compared against all of the existing information in the biometric database. The matching scores output from the Parent Biometric Template Matching sub-component is then fed into the Decision Making sub-component. If the matching score is above a predefϊned threshold value, the verification template is considered to match the enrolment template. In other words, the identity of the parent is verified and subsequent activity is allowed. Otherwise, if matching score is below the predefined threshold value, it is considered a mismatch and the activity request is rejected.

[043] Unlike the Parent Biometric Template Matching sub-component, in the Baby Biometric Template Matching sub-component, the verification template of the baby is not compared against all of the enrolment templates available in the database. Instead, the verification template of the baby is only compared against the enrolment template of the baby associated or correlated with the verified parent identity. If a match is found, the system is able to identify the biological relationship between the parent and the baby. Otherwise, a mismatch, swapping or abduction is assumed to have occurred or being attempted and further investigation is required. In short, the comparison applied in the Baby Biometric Template Matching sub-component is on a 1:1 (one-to-one) verification basis whereas the comparison for the Parent Biometric Template Matching sub-component is on 1:N (one-to-many) verification basis of identification.

[044] Our method described herein thus allows for a more accurate identification of babies who are born prematurely in which wearing of any form of device or tag might be inadvisable due to the tenderness of their limbs and skin. With its mother's biometric features available as a component of the fusion of biometric information, verification may still be implementable even if the premature baby's component of biometric features could not be enrolled yet due to the baby's own tenuous existence.

[045] Another advantage is our system is its entirely capital costs which does not have recurring "consumables" costs since there is no device or tag to be worn and discarded or reprogrammable. While the main object of our invention is to prevent babies being swapped, abducted or dealt with by unauthorised persons, it is also capable of being implemented as an efficient neonatal medical information system for a more accurate and systematic way of tracking and maintaining maternity records.

[046] Apart from maternity wards and hospitals, our proposed method and system for baby-parent identification and regulating neonatal activity may be extended to be implemented in high traffic facilities such as immigration checkpoints, airports, train stations, bus stations and the like. In such places, the presence of a baby with an accompanying adult may easily raise the alarm if the adult fails the verification process using travel documents (e.g.

microchip-embedded passport) incorporates such biometric data envisioned by our invention, which may thus curb cases of baby-for-sale rackets or baby- smuggling syndicates trafficking through such facilities.

[047] Although not described in detail, it is understood that such extensions of implementation of our invention may be undertaken by a person skilled in the art. Apart from the afore-described methods, it may also be obvious to the notional skilled person that many of the individual steps, processes or components may be modified, varied, altered or modularly reconstituted without departing from the working principles expounded herein. These are to be considered as falling within the letter and scope of our invention as defined in the following claims.

Claims

1. A method for baby-parent identification within a first facility wherein a baby's identity is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from said baby, one of its parent, and optionally its other parent or a guardian, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) enrolling said parent's biometric data at first pre-natal visit to said first facility;

(b) verifying said parent's identity based on said parent's biometric data at each subsequent visits or admissions to said first facility;

(c) enrolling said baby's biometric data upon birth and associating or

correlating same with said parent's identity based on said parent's biometric data; and

(d) verifying said baby's identity and/or parent's identity prior to allowing each post-natal activity within said first facility.

2. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1

implemented for obtaining approval of a pre-natal activity wherein the parent's biometric data is verified before allowing said pre-natal activity to proceed.

3. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1

implemented for obtaining approval of a post-natal activity wherein the parent's biometric data is verified before allowing said post-natal activity to proceed.

4. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 3 wherein the parent's biometric data is any one or combination of his/her footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape, voiceprint, and face recognition.

5. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1 wherein the parent's biometric data is independently verified or cross-verified with a third party or external biometric database, including any one or combination of a national, civil or criminal identification registration database.

6. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1 wherein the parent's biometric data enrolment in step (a) and verification in step (b) are implemented as Parent Identification Process comprising a Data

Enrolment Process component and a Data Identification Process component.

7. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 6 wherein the Data Enrolment Process component includes acquiring a sample of a biometric feature, processing said sample to extract intrinsic features and to represent same as enrolled identification data in an enrolment template, and storing said template in a database in a retrievable manner for verification.

8. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 6 wherein the Data Identification Process component includes comparing and matching a parent's biometric data being input as a verification template against enrolled data stored in a biometric database.

9. A method for identification of a baby according to Claim 1 wherein the baby's biometric data enrolled is any one or combination of its footprint, palm print, fingerprint, iris pattern, birthmark, external congenital deformity or abnormality, ear shape or voiceprint, and face recognition.

10. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 9 wherein a post-natal activity involving the mother's presence only is allowed to proceed upon verification of said mother's identification without calling for verification of the baby's identification.

11. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 9 wherein a post-natal activity involving the baby with or without the mother's presence is only allowed to proceed upon verification of both the mother's and the baby's identifications.

12. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 11 wherein the post-natal activity is discharging from the first facility of the baby and/or the mother.

13. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 9 wherein a post-natal activity involving at least the baby is only allowed to proceed upon verification of the baby's identification and identification of the other parent or guardian besides the mother.

14. A method for baby-parent identification according to any one of Claims 10— 13 wherein, upon verification failure, an investigation is initiated to probe the identification mismatch for possible malfeasance, system or data failure.

15. A method for baby-parent identification according to any one of Claims 7 — 8 wherein suitable electronic sensing devices are deployed to capture image or data according to requisite intrinsic feature.

16. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 15 wherein devices with different resolution or sensitivity are used for the same intrinsic features of baby and of parent.

17. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 15"wherein for the same biometric feature, the acquisition, processing to extract intrinsic feature and representing same from respective samples of baby and parent are different.

18. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 15 wherein the biometric feature extraction and representation includes any one or combination of finger-, palm- or foot-print patterns, friction ridge minutiae, print measurements, shape, colour and vein patterns.

19. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1 wherein the parent's biometric data is based on a single feature.

20. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 1 wherein the baby's biometric data is based on a plurality of features.

21. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 20 wherein the plurality of features are acquired and represented in a fused, combined or transformed manner to result in a canonical biometric template.

22. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 21 wherein the verification of a parent's biometric data is conducted with template matching on a 1-to-many basis.

23. A method for baby-parent identification according to Claim 21 wherein the verification of the baby's biometric data is conducted with template matching on a 1-to-l basis, upon verification of the parent's identity.

24. A system for baby-parent identification within a first facility wherein a baby's unique identify is verifiable as a fusion of biometric data from said baby, one of its parent, and optionally its other parent or a guardian, said system comprising

(a) a data enrolment process including data acquisition, feature extraction and representation and data registration steps; and (b) a data identification process including a data acquisition, feature extraction and representation, biometric template matching and decision- making steps

characterized in that

(i) the feature extraction and representation step for the baby comprises extracting at least one feature as an element for fusion with one other feature to form a unique biometric identity as said baby's enrolment biometric template;

(ii) the data registration step for the baby includes associating said baby's unique biometric identity to its parent as identified and storing the same in a biometric database;

(iii) the template matching step for the baby includes performing a one-to- one matching while the parent template matching step performing one- to-many matching;

25. A system for verifying baby-parent identification implemented in immigration checkpoint, port, airport or public transportation or second or subsequent medical facility visited after the baby-parent identification has been first established in a method according to any one of Claims 1 - 23.