Secured Outsourced Content Based Image Retrieval Based on Encrypted Signatures Extracted From Homomorphically Encrypted Images

Abstract: In this paper, we present a novel Secured Outsourced Content Based Image Retrieval solution, which allows looking for similar images stored into the cloud in a homomorphically encrypted form. Its originality is fourfold. In a first time, it extracts from a Paillier encrypted image a wavelet based global image signature. In second, this signature is extracted in an encrypted form and gives no clues about the image content. In a third time, its calculation does not require the cloud to communicate with a trusted third party as usually proposed by other existing schemes. More clearly, all computations required in order to look for similar images are conducted by the cloud only with no extra-communications. To make possible such a computation, we propose a new fast way to compare encrypted data, these ones being encrypted by the same public key or not, and using a recursive relationship in-between Paillier random values when computing the different resolution levels of the image wavelet transform. Experiments conducted in two distinct frameworks: medical image retrieval with as purpose diagnosis aid support, and face recognition for user authentication; indicate that the proposed SOCBIR does not change image retrieval performance.