Hand Biometrics Technology

Student Worksheet: 
Biometrics and Hand Geometry

 Biometrics and Hand Geometry

Biometric templates contain information extracted from biometric traits.  The resulting codes can be used for identification in a variety of situations.  In this activity, you'll determine your own personal hand geometry code.  

Step One:
1. Trace your right hand on a piece of paper, keeping the pencil as close to your skin as possible.  
2. Using a ruler, measure the following in centimeters (see diagram below):

A: Distance from index fingertip to bottom knuckle ________cm
B: Width of ring finger, measured across the top knuckle _______cm 
C: Width of palm across 4 bottom knuckles ________cm 
D: Width of palm from middle knuckle of thumb across hand _______cm 

Student Worksheet (continued):

Team members:_____________________________________________

Interactive Gumball Machine Name:  __________________________________________

  Planning Stage
Meet as a team and discuss the problem you need to solve. Then develop and agree on a design for your gumball machine. You'll need to determine what materials you want to use.  Draw your design in the box below, and be sure to indicate the description and number of parts you plan to use. 

Brainstorm designs for your gumball slide:

Choose your best design and sketch it here:

Interactive Gumball Machine

Record the 4 numbers in A, B, C, D order, which is your personal hand geometry code:

____ _____ _____ _____

Step Two:
1. Have someone else in your class trace your right hand, and repeat the measurements above.  Record the 4 numbers in A, B, C, D order…are there any differences?

____ _____ _____ _____

(Note: Biometric information on this page is provided by and used with the permission of The National Biometric Security Project (NBSP).  Duplication is permitted for educational purposes only.)

      Hand Biometrics Technology

Student Worksheet: 

You are a team of computer engineers meeting to determine whether personal hand geometry templates or numbers would be unique enough to serve as an element in a new security system for a museum.  

 Research/Preparation Phase

Each student should determine their own hand geometry template code.  A copy of each should be distributed to each team.

 Evaluation Phase

As a team, examine the geometry templates you have received.  These will represent the codes of staff that need to access the museum during evening hours to check on the security of a group of priceless paintings.  Discuss and answer the following questions to help form your plan for incorporating biometrics into the museum's new security system.

1.  How similar were the geometry template codes you examined? What did you observe that was most similar?  What did your team determine to be different in the group?

2.  What problems do you envision an employee might encounter as they placed their hand in the biometric scanning device?  

3. Are there any guidelines your engineering team would recommend regarding either capturing the codes from each employee, or in scanning the employee's hand at the entrance to the museum?

4. Do you think that fingerprint scans would be more effective?  Why?  Why Not?

 Presentation

As a team, present the results of your engineering team's evaluations to the rest of your class.

      Hand Biometrics Technology

Student Worksheet: Reflection
Biometrics can be applied to many situations, such as computer login security, employee recognition, time or attendance record systems, and voter identification.  As a team of "engineers" describe three other situations where you think engineers should consider incorporating biometrics technology to solve problems.  Please indicate whether any of these situations might warrant at two-level system, where hand biometrics is one of the two levels of verification:
1.

2.

3.

At Walt Disney World, biometric measurements are taken from the fingers of guests to ensure that the person's ticket is used by the same person from day to day.  Do you have privacy concerns about this?  Why?  Why not?  If you were part of the engineering team on this project, what would you do to ensure privacy?