As a critical means for identity authentication, biometric technology has increasingly been applied as the cornerstone of intelligent security. However, its widespread adoption still faces multiple challenges, including high equipment and maintenance costs, system integration complexity, stringent privacy and compliance requirements, as well as user concerns regarding privacy and technology reliability.
These factors represent key obstacles to the popularization of biometric technology and drive ongoing industry efforts to explore safer, more flexible, and more efficient multi-modal solutions. The key to overcoming these challenges lies in multi-modal biometric solutions. With the newly launched BioCV-D dual-modal biometric solution and multi-modal biometrics, ZKTeco continues to lead emerging trends in the biometrics market.
In recent years, the global increase in security demands has elevated the importance of biometric technology in identity and access management. Compared with traditional authentication methods such as RFID cards, biometrics provide stronger resistance against security vulnerabilities and better align with today’s data-driven environment.
Nonetheless, the biometric authentication landscape continues to evolve, alongside shifting end-user expectations. Users now expect systems with enhanced accuracy, speed, and reliability, while operating within increasingly rigorous regulatory frameworks for data security and privacy protection.
Therefore, multi-modal biometric systems that integrate two or more biometric traits — such as fingerprint, facial recognition, and palm vein — have emerged as innovative solutions to these challenges.
As ZKTeco’s core expertise, multi-modal biometric solutions overcome the limitations of single-modal biometric systems by offering multiple active authentication methods to ensure elevated security, data protection, and compliance standards. The biometric solutions deploy multi-modal hybrid feature recognition technology running on a single chip, a unique capability within the industry.
Leveraging its technology proficiency, ZKTeco applies this innovation in the BioCV-D dual-modal biometric solution. BioCV-D is the industry’s first low-latency, low-coding supercomputing biometric solution combining pattern recognition with deep learning algorithms, offering enterprises an advanced and globally adaptable dual-modal biometric authentication platform.
ZKTeco’s multi-modal biometric system innovation extends beyond biometric recognition. The BioCV-D dual-modal identification solution is the first system capable of edge deployment, providing three clear advantages due to its low processing requirements: it supports easy deployment on edge and terminal devices without being constrained by network quality and stability; it eliminates the need for high-end processors, lowering costs, power consumption, and reliance on advanced chips; and by minimizing transmission and centralized storage of sensitive data, it significantly reduces the risk of malicious attacks and data breaches.
Dual-Modal Biometrics for ultimate precision and speed of identity authentication
Biometric authentication is among the most secure ways to control access, but its accuracy heavily depends on the nature and quality of collected data. Many biometric traits can now be counterfeited with relative ease, exposing single-modal systems to spoofing attacks.
ZKTeco’s patented BioCV-D dual-modal biometric technology overcomes these vulnerabilities by concurrently capturing two distinct biometric traits — such as facial recognition, fingerprint, palm vein, etc. — to increase data points, ensure uniqueness, and thereby boost accuracy.
This approach is particularly suited for large-scale environments like crowded or high-traffic locations, where high error rates would otherwise impair system performance. If one modality becomes unavailable or unreliable, the system quickly switches to the alternative. BioCV-D simultaneously collects data from both biometric modalities.
For example, in combined facial and fingerprint access control systems, in case of unsuccessful facial recognition, fingerprint may serve as an alternative. Similarly, devices are available to collect finger vein and fingerprint data.
Multi-modal biometric systems maintain adaptive reference thresholds to improve both accuracy and robustness. They deliver superior results from each modality individually and fuse features to enhance overall recognition performance. The BioCV-D dual-biometric solution employs multi-level biometric fusion during identity verification, not only boosting reliability and accuracy but also offering customers flexible adjustment of solution strictness (with tighter or looser thresholds), balancing security with convenience.
Furthermore, the BioCV-D dual-modal solution addresses common issues in image-based biometrics such as facial recognition, mitigating increased false rejection or acceptance due to lighting, angles, or facial expressions.
The BioCV-D solution integrates full-color facial recognition with near-infrared algorithms to create a unique multi-sensor biometric platform. It features built-in binocular cameras: one full-color starlight camera with a high dynamic range sensor and advanced image processing, and a near-infrared camera to capture images in low-light conditions, capable of adapting to illumination from 50,000 lux down to 0.01 lux.
Biometric identification and login processes are further reinforced through BioCV-D’s dual-level multi-faceted detection algorithms. This technology, combined with 2D/3D facial recognition, mask detection, multi-face tracking, and liveness detection, renders the system highly resistant to spoofing attempts using photos or replicas.
ZKTeco’s latest dual-modal palm vein + palm print fusion technology
Building upon its innovation drive, ZKTeco has advanced its dual-modal technology by adopting an advanced deep learning, multi-layer convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture that fuses palm vein and palm print features. This cross-modal collaborative feature extraction and visual-language alignment significantly enhance identity uniqueness and recognition strength.
The system is equipped with a multi-spectral dual-camera setup — a full-color starlight camera and a near-infrared camera — ensuring the precise capture of internal and external palm features even under extreme lighting, thereby improving environmental adaptability.
Moreover, ZKTeco applies a dynamic weighting decision mechanism in its dual-modal fusion strategy, intelligently adjusting recognition weight between palm print and palm vein based on onsite data quality. Even if one modality suffers interference (e.g., due to sweat or skin abrasion), the system continues to achieve high recognition rates and low false rejection using the other modality.
Multi-level liveness detection that combines blood flow dynamics and skin texture analysis effectively defends against spoofing attacks involving fake hands, photos, and images, substantially enhancing security levels.
The hardware design fully considers edge device deployment requirements, supporting low-latency real-time identification and localized data processing. Dependence on high-end processors is reduced, resulting in cost and power consumption optimizations. The solution is highly suitable for high-traffic and dynamic access control environments. Recognition speed is enhanced to below 100 milliseconds to meet high-throughput operational demands.
Furthermore, the Armatura PalmElite SDK v12.0 of developed by ZKTeco has obtained ISO/IEC 19795-2 performance certification, signifying its high accuracy and reliable performance in palm biometric systems, with exceptionally low False Accept Rate (FAR) close to 0%, while maintaining a reasonable False Reject Rate (FRR) and minimal Failure to Acquire (FTA) rate, ensuring stable operation and excellent user experience. ZKTeco offers a top-performing core technology in the palm biometric market, reinforcing ZKTeco’s leading position in palm recognition and providing enhanced security and accuracy guarantees for comprehensive biometric solutions
These advanced technical capabilities exemplify ZKTeco’s continuous leadership in multi-modal biometric fusion technology, delivering more secure, efficient, and flexible identity authentication solutions to customers.
Establishing the strictest security and privacy standards
Data protection and privacy are paramount concerns in biometric systems. Compared to other data types, biometric data leakage entails significantly higher risks. Many organizations and governments consider biometric information more sensitive, as its compromise can lead to unauthorized access across other systems. Companies storing employee biometric information must meet increasingly stringent compliance standards to ensure data protection.
With this in mind, ZKTeco designed the BioCV-D technology to meet elevated personal privacy protection requirements through compliant implementations at both algorithmic and system levels.
All data and information on ZKTeco devices are encrypted. BioCV-D dual-modal biometric solutions employ irreversible biometric templates for protection, preventing reverse engineering of original biometric images even if user keys are compromised. This renders BioCV-D more secure than many market alternatives relying on random number generators.
At the operational level, users maintain full control over their data handling and storage—they can selectively enable or disable security settings, features, and modes, including inclusion or exclusion of sensitive information such as employee names, IDs, and authentication methods.
ZKTeco consistently prioritizes personal data and privacy protection. All related products carry explicit privacy policies. The BioCV-D dual-modal biometric solution and ZKTeco’s entire product portfolio conform to local and international data security regulations, including data security laws, personal data protection laws, and the EU’s GDPR.
ZKTeco has obtained full certifications for ISO27701:2019 and ISO27001:2013 standards. Hardware and GDPR-compliant software utilize AES/TLS/RSA encryption and OSDP communication protocols. Device-to-software communication employs HTTPS secure transmission protocols, and software integrates secure authorization mechanisms. These implementations collectively ensure BioCV-D delivers a high standard of data privacy and security.
ZKTeco MarsLume AI Platform: The Core Power behind Intelligent Spaces
As a vital part of the ZKTeco intelligent ecosystem, the MarsLume AI Platform integrates ZKTeco’s proprietary multi-modal BioCV model, combining visual, language, audio, and other data sources for profound spatial perception and intelligent decision-making. Its innovative hybrid architecture flexibly deploys lightweight AI models on edge devices to provide low-latency responses, while leveraging powerful local servers to handle complex tasks, striking a balance between efficiency and performance.
MarsLume supports real-time video analysis, voice command recognition, and precise processing of text and images. The platform is deeply integrated with ZKTeco’s core products to form a complete intelligent space management solution, substantially enhancing security management, operational efficiency, and user experience. It serves as a critical technological foundation driving digital transformation in smart campuses, smart parks, and smart retail environments.
Conclusion
Biometric solutions are rapidly supplanting traditional access control methods, as users increasingly seek enhanced security and convenience. This demand is set to grow further, as biometric technology bridges physical and digital identities. ZKTeco’s BioCV-D dual-modal biometric technology provides an innovative identity authentication solution characterized by improved accuracy, speed, and robustness, without compromising data security and privacy.
With expertise spanning chips, algorithms, hardware, and software, ZKTeco is well-positioned to seize emerging opportunities in the digital era and unlock limitless business potential. Its multi-modal biometric solutions form an open platform enabling close integration with diverse partners and vendors, fostering software development and the growth of a comprehensive solution ecosystem.
ZKTeco is committed to upgrading its current product portfolio through multi-modal biometric technology, further expanding and enriching core competencies in the domain. The company emphasizes building a secure BioCV-D ecosystem, advocating industry standards and best practices, and continuing breakthrough research in edge biometric applications to achieve optimal efficiency, performance, user experience, and cost-effectiveness.