There are three forms of vein pattern recognition. Palm vein pattern recognition, finger vein pattern recognition (both of which work using so-called near infrared* light) and retina vein pattern recognition.
1. Palm vein pattern recognition
The haemoglobin in your blood contains oxygen once it is transported from your lungs through the arteries to the tissues in your body. Once the blood flows back to your heart through the remaining veins, it has delivered that oxygen. Vein pattern recognition exploits this difference between oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin. Deoxygenated haemoglobin actually has the property of absorbing infrared light. This makes the vein pattern visible as soon as you shine infrared light on it with a scanner.
The vein pattern in the palm is unique to everyone, allowing you to use it – by storing reference points in the pattern – as a means of identification and security technology. In most systems using vein pattern recognition, the vein pattern is stored as an ‘image’ and may or may not be encrypted. With the Palm-ID, on the other hand, the scanned reference points are stored directly in a so-called encrypted template; the vein pattern is already converted into code in the scanner. As a result, this form of palm vein pattern recognition has an extremely high level of security.
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2. Finger vein pattern recognition
Finger vein pattern recognition works based on the same principle as palm vein pattern recognition. By beaming “near infrared” light on the vein pattern of the fingers, this pattern can be recognised thanks to deoxygenated haemoglobin. However, with a finger scan, you are dealing with a much smaller surface area. On the one hand, this makes this technique more compact than palm vein pattern recognition, because the scanner is simply smaller. But on the other hand, it is actually less user friendly because the positioning of the finger on the scanner required precision. Indeed, the smaller surface area means there are fewer reference points, making it more difficult to recognise the pattern properly. As far as vein pattern recognition is concerned, the more reference points, the more security as well as convenience.
3. Retina vein pattern recognition
The human retina is a thin tissue located in the back of the eye. Because of the complex structure of the capillaries that supply blood to the retina, each retina is unique.
In retinal vein pattern recognition, the retina is scanned by beaming a (non-infrared) light through the eyeball. Because the blood vessels in the retina absorb this light, the vein pattern can be recognised and stored as an image. Retina vein pattern recognition is used less and less, mainly because of its ease of use, or rather lack thereof. In fact, for it to work properly, users need to hold their heads still at just the right height and distance. Also, many people find it unpleasant to have light beamed into their eyes.
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