Encrypted imaging based on algebraic implementation of double random phase encoding

The security of important information captured by sensors and cameras is currently a growing concern as information theft via techniques such as side-channel attacks become increasingly more prevalent. Double random phase encoding (DRPE) is an optical encryption method based on optical Fourier transform that is currently being used to implement secure coherent optical systems. In this paper, we propose a new DRPE implementation for incoherent optical systems based on integral photography that can be applied to "encrypted imaging (EI)" to optically encrypt an image before it is captured by an image sensor. Because the proposed incoherent DRPE is constituted from conventional DRPE by rewriting the optical encryption via discretization and Euler's formula, its security level is the same as that of conventional DRPE. The results of an experiment in which we encrypted a plaintext image optically and then decrypted it numerically demonstrate that our proposed incoherent optical security system is feasible.