Biometrics refers to the measurement of biological characteristics unique to each individual for the purposes of verifying identity. These biological characteristics can include the veins in the palm or fingers of the hand, fingerprints, iris patterns or any other parts of the body whose specific patterns are unique to an individual. Biometrics has been employed in a variety of security applications, including door access control to office buildings or research laboratories, immigration control or banks' ATMs, PC or mobile phone login security.
Finger vein authentication works by utilizing the vein patterns in one's fingers to verify the identity of individuals. When one's finger is placed on the vein authentication device, the vein patterns are scanned and recorded onto an IC card, and then matched with the records in a database to confirm the identity of an individual. Unlike fingerprinting and other forms of biometrics where the biological information being scanned is on the exterior of the body, finger vein authentication scans information on the interior of the body and therefore makes falsification extremely difficult. Finger vein authentication thus serves as a highly secure form of personal authentication.
In 1997, 200 researchers at the Hitachi Research Institute began independent development of next-generation biometrics technology.
Compared with other biometrics, such as fingerprinting vein authentication is much more difficult to falsify. Vein authentication is also less expensive and thus more realistically applicable than iris scanning or face/voice recognition. Moreover，the false rejection rate (FRR) is significantly lower than fingerprinting, making finger vein authentication more applicable.
