Finger vein recognition is a recent biometric advancement that enables the identification of individuals by detecting unique patterns of veins in the finger. It is a highly efficient and reliable method, requiring only a single chip design, which in turn results in relatively small and inexpensive units. It also boasts impressively low rates of false rejections and false acceptances. Its reliability stems largely from the unchanging nature of the vein pattern, only changing in size over time, thus making the technology virtually impossible to circumvent.
The ID verification process itself is quick and contactless. A light transmission technique is employed that detects and captures the unique vein pattern in an individual’s finger.
This is one of the fastest growing technologies within the field of biometrics, and is being put to public, commercial, and military use around the world. It has been used extensively by financial institutions and can now be found on PCs as a login device, as well as in hospitals, military installations, and as a tool for law enforcement.
Finger vein recognition is most commonly used in the Asia Pacific region and is preferred over fingerprint recognition technology in places like Japan, where the latter is strongly associated with crime. Japanese banks have adopted vein recognition throughout the country, where this type of verification is becoming increasingly popular within the financial sector. One of the reasons that banks are so readily adopting this new technology is the fact that they can simply upgrade their existing ATM software with the new FVR units, rather than installing entirely new kiosks.
One disadvantage of finger vein recognition was that, unlike fingerprint identification, it did not lend itself to miniaturization. However, Hitachi, who patented the original technology, has gone a long way to overcome this hurdle by developing a 3mm thick FVR unit. This tiny, elegant design now makes it possible for the technology to be applied to smaller devices, such as mobile phones, which previously posed a problem in space and were therefore considered incompatible with vein recognition units.
The versatility and potential for rapid expansion of vein recognition are mutually exclusive. Its ability to be used in various environments, home and commercial, makes it a very promising and exciting development.