A Perspective Analysis of Handwritten Signature Technology

TL;DR

This paper provides a systematic review of the last decade's advancements in handwritten signature technology, highlighting promising research domains and suggesting future directions for the field.

Contribution

It offers a structured assessment of recent developments in signature analysis and processing, identifying key areas for future research and application.

Findings

Growth in signature verification research over 40 years

Emergence of new application domains in the last decade

Identification of promising future research directions

Abstract

Handwritten signatures are biometric traits at the center of debate in the scientific community. Over the last 40 years, the interest in signature studies has grown steadily, having as its main reference the application of automatic signature verification, as previously published reviews in 1989, 2000, and 2008 bear witness. Ever since, and over the last 10 years, the application of handwritten signature technology has strongly evolved, and much research has focused on the possibility of applying systems based on handwritten signature analysis and processing to a multitude of new fields. After several years of haphazard growth of this research area, it is time to assess its current developments for their applicability in order to draw a structured way forward. This perspective reports a systematic review of the last 10 years of the literature on handwritten signatures with respect to the new scenario, focusing on the most promising domains of research and trying to elicit possible future research directions in this subject.