Each person’s fingerprints are unique, even those of identical twins, making them a useful tool for identification. And fingerprints aren’t the only unique markers—the field of biometrics has expanded in recent years to include identification through voice, the irises and retinas of the eyes, gait, and DNA.
Now, an algorithm developed by researchers at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, has added facial blood vessels to the list.
The study, published by Ph.D. candidate Ayan Seal in the upcoming issue of the International Journal of Computational Intelligence Studies, used an infrared thermal camera to read the heat signature generated by capillaries lying just under the skin of the face. Capillaries are extremely small blood vessels, some so narrow that red blood cells have to travel through them single-file.
Although major structures like arteries tend to appear in more or less the same place in each person, capillaries branch off of larger vessels as needed. Thus, the network of capillaries in each person’s face is completely unique.
“The thermal imprints of the blood vessels may be treated as the ridges in fingerprints, and fingerprint recognition techniques may be applied on thermal imprints of human faces for their recognition,” Seal told Healthline. “A computer can rapidly compare this function with that of anyone else in the world whose face image has been scanned.”
Seal created a baseline image for each person he studied by taking 39 different thermal images from a fixed distance, with different facial expressions, in different poses, and with the face partially covered by the hands.
“One of the biggest issues with biometric identification systems is reliability. Too many false positives, too many false negatives,” security professional Kurt Narveson told Healthline. “Any time you use it for a security standpoint, there have to be no false positives. False negatives are annoying, but can be dealt with, but a false positive is a breach.”
However, he says that a multimodal approach—say, requiring someone to pass a scan and then enter a PIN number—could compensate for accuracy. Although thermal face scanning is unlikely to be used as access control for classified government material, he suggests it might have applications elsewhere, for example, at banks.
As Narveson says, “If you’re going to rob a reserve bank of millions of dollars, you don’t show up with a gun—they have 30 guys with guns. You show up in a business suit with access to their system. If that’s a slide card, that’s much easier to beat than an image of your face. You can pickpocket a card off someone, but you can’t pickpocket their face.”
However, Jennifer Lynch has her own concerns about Seal’s security claims. “I haven’t seen a biometric system yet that couldn’t be spoofed in one way or another,” she said. “It always worries me with any system when a company says it’s invulnerable to spoofing or hacking; that’s a big red flag. It just says they haven’t hired the right people to try to spoof their system yet.”
At the end of the day, Narveson agrees. “The best system? Personal recognition. The human brain picks up on far more information than we can measure or are consciously aware of,” he said. “It’s all about ‘this doesn’t seem correct.’”
See on www.healthline.com
Kenneth Carnesi holds a Juris Doctor degree from New York Law School and a Professional Certificate in International Banking from Harvard Law School. Kenneth Carnesi is the Director of Operations and Government Sales at Anaptyx LLC and sits on the Boards of The Lazarus Organization, Monkeetech LLC and MG Madison Phillips, Inc. Mr. Carnesi has also founded CICG - Carnesi International Consulting Group, a company specializing in strategy consulting to small to mid-size businesses.
Kenneth Carnesi 
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