Fujitsu Systems Business (Thailand) Ltd.

Vein pattern palm reading by Fujitsu!

December 03 2008 — The new biometry: A perceptive palm reader is helping one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S. divine the true identities of its patients, ushering in a new era of biometric identity verification. The scan, requiring less than a second, captures the unique branching pattern of blood veins and converts key data points into a code that can be compared with other palm scans to identify matches.

The device, resembling a small black cube and manufactured by Tokyo-based Fujitsu Corp., uses a vascular pattern recognition system to accurately identify people while they hold their palm just above the cube.

The scan, requiring less than a second, captures the unique branching pattern of blood veins and instantly converts key data points into a numerical code that can be compared with other palm scans to identify matches. The miniaturized device can plug into a laptop computer via a USB port, while an alternative version released last year incorporates the palm scanner into a computer mouse to facilitate secure logins.

Carolinas HealthCare System, the nation’s third largest public healthcare provider, began using PalmSecure last year in several major hospitals as part of the nation’s first biometric patient identification system based on vascular recognition technology. Now deployed at eight locations and two urgent care facilities, the identification program has enrolled about 170,000 patients in all. Once patients have registered their unique biometric “vein template,” it can be linked directly to their medical records.

How it works

At its core, the palm-reading system works by recording subdermal vein patterns. “Subdermal means the information resides inside a person’s skin, and it cannot be altered by external factors such as cuts, burns, abrasions and any other skin condition,” said Hiroko Naito, business development manager at Fujitsu Computer Products of America. The technology extracts enough information from the vein pattern to create a unique template.

To acquire each vein pattern template, the technology uses “near-infrared reflection photography,” in which a high-performance camera essentially snaps a digital picture of the vein pattern within a person’s palm. The method exploits a distinctive characteristic of deoxygenated hemoglobin carried by blood: its ability to absorb near-infrared light and create a unique distortion of the light reflected back.

Security features

Carolinas determined that the palm recognition technology’s accuracy and security features offered the best option for its patient network, Burke said. Because a computer algorithm immediately translates the image of palm veins into a number, the image cannot be stolen and reused, and patient privacy can be better safeguarded. In addition, database retrieval is faster because a number, not an image, is accessed, he said. Improved accuracy reduces that chance that patient records could be accidentally confused. Finally, patients place their hand a few inches above the device instead of actually touching it, eliminating the need for frequent cleanings and decreasing the potential for equipment damage.

“During our analysis and research, we also determined that other types of biometric identification either required touch (fingerprint), or were deemed too invasive by the general public (retinal scanning),” Burke said. Naito stressed that because the PalmSecure system stores numbers instead of images, the vein pattern information would be incomprehensible to anyone who tapped into the system illegally. But perhaps one the best selling points of all, she said, is the algorithm’s low “false acceptance ratio” of 0.00008 percent, meaning that it incorrectly matches a vein template less than once per million tries — an error rate that even the best human palm-reader would be hard-pressed to match.

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About Fujitsu Systems Business (Thailand) Ltd.

Fujitsu Systems Business (Thailand) Ltd., FSBT, incorporated in Thailand in September 1990, provides a wide range of computer and telecommunication products and solutions for manufacturing, education, retail, banking, and other business sectors.
For more information, please see: http://th.fujitsu.com

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