Full-hand vein technology offers better, safer digital ID

A Chinese research team has developed a new cutting-edge recognition technology featuring micro traits of veins within human hands, which is "much safer and more convenient than prevailing QR code and facial recognition technology," the researchers said.

"The AirWave full-hand-vein technology, based on artificial intelligence, is capable of sensing millions of dimensional micro-feature characteristic points, from major veins to capillaries, with just a single wave of the hand, enabling users to remain in motion while being identified and authorized," said Xie Qinglu, founder and chairman of Melux, the technology's developer.

"The major veins and capillaries under skin are individually unique, and they are at the five- micrometer level and even more sophisticated than road systems in a metropolis," Xie said, adding that the technology is the most accurate recognition technology available to date in the world.

"The AirWave technology can identify one hand out of a billion accurately in less than three-tenths of a second," Xie said on the sideline of the Asia-Europe Innovation and Development Forum, which was held in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, over the weekend.

Themed on "Innovation for Development: Fostering New Growth Drivers", some 400 officials, experts and businessmen from 31 countries and regions came to the event to discuss topics, including IT innovation, smart manufacturing, smart cities and e-commerce innovation.

According to Xie, AirWave technology has been used in several cafeterias and government public service areas in South China's Guangdong province. His company, based in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is negotiating with a metro operator to apply AirWave technology.

Xie, who has years of experience in Silicon Valley in the United States, predicted that AirWave technology and the like will replace cash, cards and QR Codes in the near future to be widely used in payments, finance services, public transportation, social security and so on.

In Xie's view, facial recognition technology takes advantage of the outer part of human bodies, which can compromise privacy and confidentiality and is easily copied.

He said he believes facial recognition technology can only play an auxiliary role on occasions, such as making a payment.

In February, a group of images online produced with "face-changing" technology, better known as deepfakes, caused a stir among Chinese citizens, according to previous report in China Daily.

The technology is a human image synthesis technique based on artificial intelligence that uses a combination of existing and source videos to create a false video that appears to show people doing things that never occurred in reality.