Patent ID: 8045768

Claim:
Device for the recognition of natural skin from a living being ( 5 ) during touchless biometric identification of a person, wherein characteristic line patterns at a sample area of a finger or palm of the hand are touchlessly determined, the device comprising: a papillary line sensor ( 24 ) for determination of a characteristic line pattern of skin ( 5 ); a data processing unit comprising a comparator; a plurality of light sources ( 10 , 11 ) having different wavelengths and adjusted for illuminating an irradiation point ( 1 ), assigned to the finger or the palm of the hand, with light ( 2 ) in a manner precluding at least a part of said sample area from being illuminated; and a detector ( 20 ) adjusted for detection of a fraction of a part ( 3 ) of the light ( 2 ), entering at said irradiation point ( 1 ) through a skin surface ( 4 ) of the person into the skin ( 5 ), scattered by skin tissue inside of the skin ( 5 ) and exiting from the skin ( 5 ) through the skin surface ( 4 ) as scattered light ( 7 ) at a plurality of detection points ( 9 ) wherein said plurality of detection points ( 9 ) are disposed at respective different distances from said irradiation point ( 1 ) and at respective locations different from said irradiation point ( 1 ) and are assigned to the part of the sample area precluded from being illuminated; wherein a signal determined by said detector is passed to said comparator and compared with stored data to determine whether said sample area agrees with natural skin based upon a dependence of an intensity of the scattered light on the respective different distances between said plurality of detection points and said irradiation point and on a respective wavelength of the light.