What is biometric recognition?
"Biometric recognition (also known as biometrics) refers to the automated recognition of individuals based on their biological and behavioral traits (ISO/IEC JTC1 SC37). Examples of biometric traits include fingerprint, face, iris, palmprint, retina, hand geometry, voice, signature and gait " (Scholarpedia).
What is the recent breakthrough?
Researchers from the University of South Wales in Australia have implemented a method to identify humans based on the pattern of the veins on the hands. " [...] Syed Shah, a researcher at the University of New South Wales' School of Computer Science and Engineering [, says that] Vein patterns lie underneath the skin, thus do not leave any imprint, unlike fingerprints, are not available over social media, unlike facial photographs, and cannot be obtained surreptitiously, unlike irises," Shah told CNN in an email. 'Therefore, we believe that a vein based approach will be much more difficult to bypass ' (CNN).
How does AI aid in identifying veins?
"Using artificial intelligence, researchers extracted "discriminating features" from these patterns [identified from photos taken with a depth camera] -- these, they say, could then be used to identify an individual with more than 99% accuracy from a group of 35 participants" (CNN).