Biometric template protection and feature handling

The present invention relates to a method and a system of verifying the identity of an individual by employing biometric data associated with the individual while providing privacy of said biometric data. A basic idea of the present invention is to represent a biometric data set XFP with a feature vector. A number of sets XFP1, XFP2,..., XFPm of biometric data and hence a corresponding number of feature vectors is derived, and quantized feature vectors X1, X2,..., Xm are created. Then, noise robustness of quantized feature components is tested. A set of reliable quantized feature components is formed, from which a subset of reliable quantized feature components is randomly selected. A first set W1 of helper data is created from the subset of selected reliable quantized components. The helper data W1 is subsequently used in a verification phase to verify the identity of the individual.