at bristol robotics lab, they're taking an interest in every detail.s that more secure, then, than just using your fingerprint? certainly. with a fingerprint, it's a small region of the hand. obviously with this system we're getting the whole surface and that, combined with the vein structure, just add an extra layer of security. do you think this could be spoofed? i think it's unlikely. research recently showed the ability to extract fingerprints or handprints off celebrities from a distance. from photos? from photos. so, you could use that to generate a 3—d surface but you still wouldn't have the vein structure on the back of the hand. that would be very difficult to hack. in chicago, some people are already using their palm and to pay for things. it's being called naked payment. no cards, cash or phones. palmsecure‘s touchless readers only use infrared lights to take a photo of your veins. iris scanners are also about to emerge from the lab and be used in the real world. from september, tsb will be the first bank in europe to adopt retina scan techn