Biometrics and Palm Recognition
Ross Michael Dimas
Comm 218
June 19, 2014
Ms. Monique Derr

Biometrics and Palm Recognition

Biometrics, the very sound of the word makes one think of high tech computers and the future, a la the James Bond and Mission Impossible movie franchises. In reality, the use of biometrics for personal identification can be traced to prehistoric handprints in caves dating back 30,000 years; to the rudimentary use of fingerprints by merchants in 14th Century China and ultimately the widespread use of biometrics as a law enforcement tool by both Scotland Yard in London and the Inspector of Police in Bengal, India in late 1800s. The word “biometrics” is derived from the Greek root words “bio”, meaning life and “metrics”, meaning to measure. The use of biometrics allows one to uniquely recognize a person based on one or more intrinsic traits and/or behaviors.
While there are numerous subgroups of biometric modalities, the focus for security will be on the following main groupings: fingerprints, hand-telemetry, vascular-palm vein, iris / retinal & facial.
Palm- vein recognition is the seen as the most secure identifying trait in use thus far. Blood veins are formed during the first eight weeks of gestation in a chaotic manner, influenced by environment in a mother’s womb. This is why vein pattern is unique to each individual, even to twins. Veins grow with a person’s skeleton, and while capillary structures continue to grow and change, vascular patterns are set at birth and do not change over the course of one’s lifetime.

To scan the veins, an individual’s hand is placed on the hand guide (the plastic casing of the scanner device) and the vein pattern is captured by lighting the hand with near-infrared light. Veins contain deoxidized hemoglobin, an iron-containing pigment in the blood that carried oxygen through the body. These pigments absorb the near-infrared light and reduce the reflection rate causing the veins to appear as a black pattern.

An individual’s scanned palm vein data (biometric template) is encrypted for a protection and registered along with the other details in his/her profile as a reference for future comparison The ultimate selection of one particular biometric modality over another always needs to consider the cost, as well as the importance of each of these basic biometric parameters: universality, uniqueness, permanence, collectability, performance, acceptability and circumvention. Universality refers to whether or not each person has the specific biometric trait (ex. subcutaneous scans allow the system to have virtually zero failure to enroll whereas fingerprints are not always useable due to environmental factors on the surface of the skin). Uniqueness speaks to how well the trait separates one person from another (ex. the palm vein pattern is more than 100 times more unique than a fingerprint pattern). Irrespective of the biometric modality chosen for your specific use case (ex. patient identification, secure access, single sign-on, etc.), all participants need to go through an initial biometric palm vein enrollment process. In, the case of a positive patient identification systems each patient will provide proof of identity the first time they visit their provider.
Biometric security is changing the way businesses use security with a critical answer to accuracy and acceptability, the key parameters. When dealing with ‘patient’ safety, attaining the highest degree of accuracy is paramount. That said, without patient acceptance (minimum 85%-95% adoption rate), use of the system becomes the exception rather than the standard. A palm-vein biometric program could be extremely accurate (ex. passport control at some international airports require 3-factor authentication: fingerprint, iris and passport), but that process is much too slow, costly and invasive for healthcare use cases. The technology is able to accurately identify consumers and users everywhere from the medical point-of –care facility to employees use in the company cafeterias point-of –sale counter.

There is no question that biometric palm-vein patient identification brings significant benefits to healthcare. Whether or not it is right for your organization requires serious due diligence, including a detailed ROI analysis. Make sure that you do extensive reference checking and wherever possible, ask for a site visit to a business similar to yours. This type of identification technology brings a multitude of new uses in real-world user applications in the volume and service areas. This is considered the best way to verify identification thus far; in place of passwords, swipe- cards, fingerprints and retina scans; the addition of biometrics to your registration/check-in workflow should be seamless and make for a better experience for both your clients and your staff.