A biometric authentication apparatus, which detects biometric characteristic data of a palm and performs individual authentication, comprising - an image capturing device, that captures images of a hand, especially images of a palm, - an image blurring device that, defending on the embodiment, consists of only one -- either a digital blur filter, that blurs the image captured by the image-capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, -- either a blurring lens for optical blurring of the scene, before it is captured by an image capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, - a processing device for processing each captured image comprises: -- a sparse matched-filtering unit, that performs sparse matched filtering of the image by simulating four matched filters using only a single combined sparse matched filtering kernel, in the result a sparse matched filtering values are obtained for each pixel, -- a Halo artifact removal unit, that sets to zero any negative sparse matched filtering value acquired in previous step, -- a vector obtaining unit, that assigns angles to each of the four values, acquired in each filtered pixel for obtaining four complex responses in each pixel, where said four complex responses are summed together to acquire one cumulative vector value for each pixel, wherein said vector obtaining unit comprises a NxM grid, that divides the captured image in predetermined cells to generate from each cell the most significant vector or multiple vectors and acquire a set of vectors, -- a registration processing unit, that compares obtained set of vectors against set of vectors stored in a data storage device, as a result a set of vectors for captured image is generated which can be matched with set of vectors stored in the data storage device, - a data storage device, that stores plurality of sets of vectors characterizing biometric characteristic data of a hand, especially of a palm. - an image capturing device, that captures images of a hand, especially images of a palm, - an image blurring device that, defending on the embodiment, consists of only one -- either a digital blur filter, that blurs the image captured by the image-capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, -- either a blurring lens for optical blurring of the scene, before it is captured by an image capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, -- either a digital blur filter, that blurs the image captured by the image-capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, -- either a blurring lens for optical blurring of the scene, before it is captured by an image capturing device before the image reaches the sparse matched-filtering unit, - a processing device for processing each captured image comprises: -- a sparse matched-filtering unit, that performs sparse matched filtering of the image by simulating four matched filters using only a single combined sparse matched filtering kernel, in the result a sparse matched filtering values are obtained for each pixel, -- a Halo artifact removal unit, that sets to zero any negative sparse matched filtering value acquired in previous step, -- a vector obtaining unit, that assigns angles to each of the four values, acquired in each filtered pixel for obtaining four complex responses in each pixel, where said four complex responses are summed together to acquire one cumulative vector value for each pixel, wherein said vector obtaining unit comprises a NxM grid, that divides the captured image in predetermined cells to generate from each cell the most significant vector or multiple vectors and acquire a set of vectors, -- a registration processing unit, that compares obtained set of vectors against set of vectors stored in a data storage device, as a result a set of vectors for captured image is generated which can be matched with set of vectors stored in the data storage device, -- a sparse matched-filtering unit, that performs sparse matched filtering of the image by simulating four matched filters using only a single combined sparse matched filtering kernel, in the result a sparse matched filtering values are obtained for each pixel, -- a Halo artifact removal unit, that sets to zero any negative sparse matched filtering value acquired in previous step, -- a vector obtaining unit, that assigns angles to each of the four values, acquired in each filtered pixel for obtaining four complex responses in each pixel, where said four complex responses are summed together to acquire one cumulative vector value for each pixel, wherein said vector obtaining unit comprises a NxM grid, that divides the captured image in predetermined cells to generate from each cell the most significant vector or multiple vectors and acquire a set of vectors, -- a registration processing unit, that compares obtained set of vectors against set of vectors stored in a data storage device, - a data storage device, that stores plurality of sets of vectors characterizing biometric characteristic data of a hand, especially of a palm.