Patent ID: 8299896

Claim:
A method for monitoring hand hygiene and for dispensing hand soap or hand sanitizers, comprising the steps of: collecting a set of partial biometric data from a group of persons, the set of partial biometric data being sufficient to distinguish each individual within the group of persons but being substantially insufficient to distinguish a pool of people outside of the group of persons; sensing biometric data from a first individual from the group of persons with a biometric sensing apparatus coupled to a hand hygiene dispenser; identifying the first individual by comparing the sensed biometric data from the first individual with the set of partial biometric data; and dispensing a hand soap or hand sanitizer from the hand hygiene dispenser onto the hands of the first individual; wherein the step of collecting a set of partial biometric data from a group of persons comprises: creating a database for storing a set of templates; for each individual from the group of persons, performing the steps of, extracting an at least one characteristic data point from the individual; creating a template associating the at least one characteristic data point with the individual; comparing the template to the set of templates in the database; extracting a subsequent characteristic data point from the individual only if the template is not unique to the set of templates; storing the template in the database.