Abstract:In this paper, the identity authentication technology and biological characteristic recognition were introduced at first. Then the shortcomings of fingerprint recognition--the most extensively used biological characteristic identity authentication method at present, was indicated. On this basis, a new biological characteristic identity authentication method--the hand vein recognition was proposed. Theoretical foundation and difficulty of hand vein recognition was analyzed. A new threshold segmentation method and match method of vein picture were proposed. The match experiment was carried on, very good experiment result was obtained.