Finger vein scan to beat fraud

A new biometric method of identity verification to reduce fraud has been released.

Finger vein authentication utilises the vein patterns inside fingers for personal identity verification.

Vein patterns vary between fingers and people and as they are hidden underneath the skin’s surface, forgery is made extremely difficult.

The technology, developed by Hitachi, has already proved successful in Japan where banks have embraced biometric solutions as a reliable, accurate and robust security solution to prevent card fraud.

Finger vein authentication utilises near infra-red light and a special scanner to capture the unique pattern of the finger vein for use as a biometric key for each person. This repeatable pattern can be stored in a secure database of portable device as part of a registration process. Each time a user seeks to make a transaction, a scan of their finger vein will be correlated with the database record to check for a match.

As veins are hidden inside the body, there is little risk of forgery or theft. Finger vein patterns are different even among identical twins and remain constant through the adult years.

Hitachi has developed a new method of scanning called ‘side lighting’, which combines advantages from the conventional methods of ‘light reflection’ and ‘light transmission’.

Light shines through the sides of the finger and scatters inside the finger, then passes through the other side and is detected by the image sensor to capture the vein pattern image.

Card fraud costs UK businesses millions of pounds each year in lost revenue. Next generation biometric technologies, such as finger vein scanners, can reduce fraud by authenticating that the cardholder is present when a transaction is processed in their name.

Research has indicated that criminals have quickly adapted to the new Chip and PIN environment, with one of the failings being that many people do not shield their PIN when entering it into the terminals. Thieves ‘shoulder surf’ to learn the PIN and steal the card; they can then fraudulently obtain money from accounts or pay for goods and services.

Trevor Williams, product manager at Hitachi, said: “It has reduced ATM fraud significantly disabling the ability for criminals to shoulder surf or acquire pin numbers from unsuspecting card users.”

In Japan, finger vein products have enjoyed great success in the financial sector, where 70 per cent of major financial institutions have adopted the technology as a biometric solution, storing templates securely on a smart card rather than on a database.