Why your palm could be safer than fingerprints or facial recognition

Amazon and Apple both have patents for palm scanners and Chinese startups have already started using the tech in locks and vending machines

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Hand ID on the LG G8 ThinkQ “uses your unique circulatory and hand patterns to effortlessly unlock your phone with a quick scan of your palm.” In theory, at least. (Picture: LG)

Published: 8:00am, 16 Jan 2020Updated: 6:26pm, 16 Feb 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Biometrics are increasingly used for identification and mobile payments, but most current systems face limitations and concerns about privacy. Maybe you’ve worried about your facial data being held by various tech companies or hesitated about pressing your finger on a dirty scanner at border checks.

Touchless palm verification is one piece of tech that might be able to address these problems. Palm recognition systems work by identifying vein patterns and lines and creases on the hand’s surface, ideally using cameras and infrared to avoid contact.

“Compared with [a] face, palmprint is not privacy sensitive,” said Xu Liang, who has studied palm recognition and works at Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society. “Given a palmprint image, no one could tell to whom it belongs. In daily life, the palm is curled up, so without active cooperation, it’s very hard for hidden cameras to steal our palmprint information.”

Facial recognition has become ubiquitous in China, but it’s recently been plagued by privacy concerns. (Picutre: Li Jianan/Xinhua)

Liang was a research assistant for Professor David Zhang, the founding director of Biometrics Research Center at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Zhang has also studied palm recognition for years, publishing many works related to the field since 2003.

Another security advantage for palm recognition is that it’s difficult to steal when the target is dead. Liang said subcutaneous palm vein patterns can only be captured under infrared light when the subject is alive, giving the system an inherent anti-spoofing ability.