Security Technologies

Fujitsu, IBM Team for Palm Scan Identification Technology

• By Denise Harrison
• 01/20/10

Fujitsu Frontech North America and IBM have announced a new security solution that integrates palm biometric technology from Fujitsu with IBM's enterprise single sign-on solution. The resulting product reads and recognizes the veins in a user's palm to verify identities.

The new offering aims to help by bypassing hassles of managing multiple passwords for access to critical information by enabling users to simply scan their palms. By integrating the palm vein technology with IBM's single sign-on software, users can securely access applications, and eliminate concerns about lost or stolen passwords.

The solution combines Fujitsu PalmSecure Logondirector with IBM Tivoli Access Manager for single sign-on, providing a comprehensive authentication solution designed to protect data and comply with HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley, PCI DDS, and other industry and federal regulations.

For example, an employee simply holds his or her hand over a small scanning device attached to a computer that reads the vein patterns in their palm and instantly recognizes the user's identity and what access that affords them. The technology uses near-infrared light to capture a person's palm vein pattern, generating a unique biometric template that is matched against users' pre-registered palm vein patterns.

The companies said palm vein identification is an unobtrusive and highly accurate technology, and demonstrates low occurrences of both false positive and false negative readings. It uses no trace technology, which leaves virtually no biometric footprint behind and therefore it is difficult to spoof, especially when compared with cheaper fingerprinting devices, according to the companies.