Palm vein biometrics or palm vein scanning is a relatively new biometric modality. It’s not as well-known as facial recognition, iris or fingerprints, but its reliability provides it with the potential for gaining more attention and approval in the nearest future.

What is palm vein scanning?

Palm vein scanning, also known as palm vein recognition, is a biometric authentication method. Almost anything unique about a human can be used as a biometric, so it’s not surprising that the pattern of veins on the palm of your hand can be used to identify you.

Palm vein scanners usually utilize near-infrared LED lights. When a person brings their hand close to a scanner's sensor, near-infrared light is emitted, and blood in the veins absorbs it. It allows an image of a dark vein pattern inside the hand to be captured. After that, the pattern is compared to those from the database to verify the person's identity.

How does palm vein scanning work?

Palm vein scanners use near infrared (NIR) light to get a clear image of the veins under your skin. When the near-infrared light from the palm scanner is directed on the person's palm, hemoglobin absorbs its rays. The veins' capacity to reflect the light is reduced, and they appear like a black pattern on the image taken by the system.  The pattern of the veins in your hand is unique to you and doesn’t change so it can be used to identify you.

How can palm vein biometrics be used?

• Personal identification. This type of biometrics-based authentication technology provides means to identify a person with more accuracy than face recognition or fingerprints.

• Workforce communication. Palm vein recognition technology can be used in supervising and directing employees' actions, like checking the time of arrival to work or the time spent at the workplace.

• Access Control. Prevention of unauthorized access to valuable information or equipment using palm vein scans is more secure than using passwords.

• Healthcare. Palm vein scans can be linked to patients' medical history and used for identifying them and quickly accessing necessary information.

• Banking. For financial operations held both online and offline, palm vein recognition can serve as a digital signature, effectively replacing other means of authorization.

Benefits of palm vein recognition

Security

Palm vein patterns are hidden inside the human's body and, therefore, should be difficult to capture without a person knowing it. This enhances the level of security and reliability of palm scanning as an authentication technology. Moreover, encryption of the data makes it less susceptible to being compromised.

Privacy

Unlike the face, which is visible to anyone in a public place, palm vein patterns cannot be scanned from a distance without a person's consent.

The procedure of taking a palm vein scan normally requires a subject's active cooperation (e.g., putting a hand in front of the sensor). In addition, even during the process, the pattern itself does not become exposed to the people around. This makes this technology less subject to privacy concerns.

Accuracy

The palm vein pattern is significantly bigger in size than those of the finger or iris. Consequently, the scan from it contains more data, which increases the accuracy of the identification.

Reliability

Unlike many other biometric parameters (face, fingerprints), palm vein patterns are not likely to change due to some unexpected circumstances over the course of a person's life.

In addition, palm vein scanners are not particularly sensitive to external conditions like humidity, which minimizes the negative impact of random environmental factors on its performance.

Hygiene

One more important advantage of the palm vein scan process is that it does not require physical contact with the scanner. It becomes an especially attractive feature in cases when the scanner has to be used by a lot of people, so it would be difficult to keep it sterile.

Palm vein scanners usually utilize near-infrared LED lights. When a person brings their hand close to a scanner's sensor, near-infrared light is emitted, and blood in the veins absorbs it. It allows an image of a dark vein pattern inside the hand to be captured. After that, the pattern is compared to those from the database to verify the person's identity.

Accuracy of palm vein recognition

Palm vein scan recognition is a simple and reliable way of personal authentication. Like all biometric modalities, the accuracy is never going to be 100%, but it’s a viable modality with some advantages.

Who invented palm vein technology?

Vein pattern recognition was invested by Joe Rice, an automation controls engineer at Kodak's Annesley factory, in the early 1980s after his bank cards and identity were stolen. He was based in the UK and assigned the rights to the UK's National Research Development Corporation (NRDC). The NRDC made very little headway in licensing vein pattern technology. The predominate purchaser of biometric systems was government agencies and law enforcement. For these organizations, fingerprints were the preferred biometric modality because criminals leave latent fingerprints at crime scenes.

The modality never generated much commercial interest but recently more companies have begun to launch and deploy systems using palm vein biometrics.