Biowatch: identify yourself with your veins!

Goal

Biometric bracelet that identifies its wearer by analysing the pattern of veins in the wrist, and communicates the wearer’s identity to the wider environment.

Partners

Biowatch, Institut Idiap, The Ark Foundation

The main mission of The Ark’s Accelerator service is to provide a link between science and the marketplace, by transforming the technologies produced by research institutes into marketable products. It is in this context that the Foundation is supporting the Biowatch project, which involves the application of certain algorithms developed by the Biometrics group of the Idiap Research Institute.
Headed by Matthias Vanoni, a former student of the Idiap Biometrics group, under the leadership of Dr Sébastien Marcel, the project involves providing an alternative to the passwords, PIN codes, car keys, badges, and various cards (access, payment, transport, etc.) that we use daily to validate our access to goods or services. The envisaged solution takes the form of a biometric bracelet that identifies its wearer by analysing the pattern of veins in the wrist, and communicates the wearer’s identity to the wider environment.
 

A new start-up

Dr Sébastien Marcel’s research group has been conducting biometry research for many years, and has developed a range of tools and algorithms in this field, more specifically in the recognition of the veins in the fingers. 
The Ark Foundation, through its Accelerator service, will enable the researchers from Martigny to adapt their algorithms for integration into a bracelet, where they can be used to identify the veins of the wrist. The results of this project are now being commercially developed and marketed by the company Biowatch, an Idiap spin-off founded in January 2015.