| Development of the world's first contact-free palm vein authentication technology |
| Takahiro Aoki ・ Mitsuaki Fukuda ・ Shinichi Eguchi |
There are two imaging methods used for veins: reflection and transmission. The reflection method illuminates the target part from the front and the transmission method illuminates the target part from the back, the side or the surface around the target. In the reflection method, an illumination device and a capturing device can be combined because the directions of illumination and capturing are the same. This should result in a smaller vein sensor using the reflection method than using the transmission method. For this reason, the palm vein sensor adopts the reflection method. The world's first contact-free palm vein authentication technology was developed in 2003, and the sale of palm vein authentication equipment based on this technology was started in 2004. The sensor has been widely adopted both inside and outside Japan as a means of personal identification at financial institutions (Fig.1) and as a computer login and room entrance control method at corporations.
The new sensor developed by the award winners is the world's smallest and slimmest palm vein authentication sensor (Fig.2). The sensor's high-speed image capture and automatic verification enable a marked improvement in usability. The award winners have developed a system that can identify a given person out of a pool of five million people, delivering one-to-five million matching. The system developed using this technology uses palm vein and fingerprint data from three fingers.
Using the data of 150,000 palms from 75,000 people, we confirmed that the system has a false acceptance rate of less than 0.00008% and a false rejection rate of 0.01%, providing that the hand is held over the device twice during registration. One retry is allowed for comparison during authentication. In addition, the device’s ability to perform personal authentication was verified using the following data: 1) data from individuals ranging from 5 to 85 years old; 2) data from foreigners living in Japan; 3) data that traces daily changes in the palm vein pattern over several years; and 4) data taken in various situations in daily life, for example, after drinking alcohol or taking a bath.
The palm vein authentication technology was evaluated in Round 6 of Comparative Biometric Testing (CBT), by the International Biometric Group (IBG) in 2006. The result of the evaluation further indicates that the palm vein authentication has high usability, is easy for users to learn, and is ideal for high-volume and large-scale application deployment. In the case of palm vein authentication, approximately 40,000 genuine comparisons and 50 million imposter comparisons were executed. Thus, once users learn how to use the device, they can use it successfully thereafter. This data further confirms that palm vein authentication features high accuracy and optimal usability, both of which are highly relevant to real-world conditions.
The palm vein authentication system has been certified under the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (ISO15408) as Evaluation Assurance Level 2. This is the world's first vein-based authentication system and only the third biometric authentication system of any kind to be certified under this international standard.
Some banks in Japan adopted palm vein authentication for personal authentication in ATMs in October 2004. In addition to Japan, Brazil has already decided to adopt palm vein authentication for user identification in ATM banking transactions. After researching various biometric technologies, Banco Bradesco S.A. chose palm vein authentication for its outstanding features, such as its high verification accuracy and its noninvasive and hygienic properties, making it easier to be accepted by bank customers.
The award winners contributed to information leakage prevention worldwide and to greater safety through the protection of individual information by developing the contact-free palm vein authentication technology. This achievement is remarkable and merits the achievement award.
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Fig. 1 Palm vein authentication sensor with ATM |
Fig. 2 World's smallest and slimmest authentication sensor |
