Patent ID: 8190239

Claim:
An individual identification device which uses an image of blood vessels of a hand to perform individual identification, comprising: an imaging device which can image blood vessels of a hand, comprising: a position/direction/shape instructing unit instructing a user to hold up his hand; one or more irradiating units irradiating the hand with near infrared radiation; and an imaging unit producing an image of the hand by the near infrared radiation responsive to reflection, by the hand, of the near infrared radiation irradiated by the one or more irradiating units; and a computer comprising: a processor; a storage device; the processor executes a process including: producing an image of the hand using the imaging device; extracting a blood-vessel image from the produced image of the hand; storing a registered hand blood-vessel image to the storage device; calculating a three-dimensional shape of the hand according to a position and/or direction of the hand from the produced image of the hand as a calculation result; correcting and outputting a corrected extracted blood-vessel image according to the calculation result when a correction not larger or equal to a specified amount is to be made and not outputting a corrected extracted blood-vessel image when a correction larger than the specified amount is to be made, and notifying the user of a correction result when the corrected extracted blood-vessel image is outputted; and identifying the user by comparing the extracted blood-vessel image with the registered blood-vessel image when the corrected extracted blood-vessel image is not outputted and by comparing the corrected extracted blood-vessel image with the registered blood-vessel image when the corrected extracted blood-vessel image is outputted.