A U.K. supermarket has become the first in the world to let shoppers pay for groceries using just the veins in their fingertips.

Customers at the Costcutter store, at Brunel University in London, can pay using their unique vein pattern to identify themselves.

The firm behind the technology, Sthaler, said it is in “serious talks” with other major U.K. supermarkets to adopt finger vein scanners at pay points across thousands of stores.

It works by using infrared to scan people’s finger veins and then links this unique biometric map to their bank cards. Customers’ bank details are then stored with payment provider Worldpay, in the same way you can store your card details when shopping online. Shoppers can then turn up to the supermarket with nothing on them but their own hands and use it to make payments in just three seconds.

It comes as previous studies have found fingerprint recognition, used widely on mobile phones, is vulnerable to being hacked and can be copied even from finger smears left on phone screens.

But Sthaler, the firm behind the technology, claims vein technology is the most secure biometric identification method as it cannot be copied or stolen.

Shaler said dozens of students were already using the system and 3,000 students out of 13,000 are expected to sign up by November.

The technology uses an infrared light to create a detailed map of the vein pattern in your finger. It requires the person to be alive, meaning in the unlikely event a criminal hacks off someone’s finger, it would not work. Sthaler said it take just one minute to sign up to the system initially and, after that, it takes just seconds to place your finger in a scanner each time you reach the supermarket checkout.

Simon Binns, commercial director of Sthaler, said there are no known incidences where this security has been breached.

“Your vein pattern is secure because it is kept in a database at Worldpay in an encrypted form, as binary numbers.”

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【生物识别】shēngwù shíbié biometric the measurement of physical characteristics, such as fingerprints, DNA, or retinal patterns, for use in verifying the identity of individuals

【易受攻击的】yì shòu gōngjī de vulnerable open to assault, difficult to defend

英国一家超市成为世界上首个允许顾客在购买日用品时使用指尖静脉付款的超市。

顾客现在可以在伦敦布鲁内尔大学内的Costcutter商店通过独一无二的静脉特征验证身份付款。

发明这项技术的公司Sthaler表示，他们正在和英国其他主要超市“认真沟

通”让数千家商店的收银处采用高科技指尖静脉扫描仪。

这一技术的原理是利用红外线扫描顾客手指的静脉，然后将这种独一无二的生物特征与顾客的银行卡相关联。顾客的银行信息存储在支付服务提供商Worldpay的系统中，网购时也是这样留存银行卡信息的。顾客之后便可以空手逛超市，只用花3秒钟就可用这种方式付款。

此前的研究发现，在手机上广泛应用的指纹识别技术很容易被黑客攻击，甚至从手机屏幕上就可以复制指纹印迹。

但Sthaler公司声称，静脉识别技术是最安全的生物识别方法，无法被复制或窃取。

该公司表示，很多学生已经使用该支付系统，预计截至11月全校13000名学生中将有3000人完成注册。

该技术利用红外线扫描出手指静脉的详细图像。支付者必须是活人，这意味着一旦犯罪分子切下某人的手指，那也行不通。Sthaler公司表示，你只需要花费一分钟时间先在系统上注册，之后每次在超市结账时，只要花几秒钟把手指放在扫描仪上。

Sthaler公司商务总监西蒙•宾斯说目前这项安全措施还有没被破解过。

“你的静脉特征以二进制文件的形式被加密保存在Worldpay的数据库中，十分安全。”(Chinadaily.com.cn)