Subscriber Discussion

Looking For Feedback On Palm Vein Access Control

RB
Rico Blaser
Sep 19, 2017

Apart from the price tag, access control via palm vein scanner appears to be a no-brainer: best in class acceptance / rejection rates (similar to iris scans), incredibly difficult to forge (requires blood flow, millions of points, near infrared close-up of hand), no touch access (sanitary, user acceptance), cannot lose or give away keys, and so on.

The technology has been out for years and has been used in Asia even for retail ATMs with thousands of users.

However, Fujitsu appears to be the dominant (only?) OEM for these sensors. With their latest product line (PalmSecure F-Pro from 2016) they have also increased the shutter speed of the sensor for faster and higher precision authentication, even for moving hands, as well as a much better operating temperature range. They have manufactured several generations of these sensors over the past decade.

Apart from price, it sure sounds like a pretty compelling story. However, few people in the US and Europe appear to be deploying this technology at the moment and besides Fujitsu, no major manufacturer seems to be entering the space. What gives?

What has your experience been? Why or when are you deploying palm vein scanners? Which products do you use for access control? Are there any other manufacturers of such sensors? Why did you decide against the technology? What are your recommendations? What is the best way to integrate these sensors into an existing environment? Is pricing really that big of an issue (sensors retail for about $300, less than a good camera)? 

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Jonathan Lawry
Sep 19, 2017
Trecerdo, LLC

Here's the challenge with this.  To use these devices in a complete access control system, you have to do one of two things:

  1. It has to be worked into the entire "solution"...the head-end software has to know about and manage the bio templates, etc, the door controller panels have to know about the templates, etc.... this is a big deal.
  2. The devices themselves hold the templates and "spit-out" a weigand stream on valid access, to access control hardware that doesn't know the bio device even exists.  This is problematic because you have to have a way to manage the templates for each reader, separate from the PACS.

Having said that, if you were a PACS vendor like Lenel or Software House, how likely would you be to make the development investment in #1?  The OSDP protocol standard does streamline biometric template handling, and this is slowly gaining traction.  Unless these readers support OSDP, I doubt any PACS vendor would make the effort.

 

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