Method and device for verifying the authenticity of a captured biometric characteristic

Abstract

The invention relates to a method of checking the authenticity of biometric sensing performed optically, in which a body organ (6) placed on a main face (2) of a prismatic optical element (1) is illuminated (8) with total internal reflection, and then the reflected radiation carrying the biometric image of said body organ is picked up (9). The method comprises the steps of superposing on the main illumination (8) on the main face (2) of the prismatic optical element (1), encoding illumination (14) in such a manner that it is the encoded combined radiation that is reflected by said main face (2) and picked up (9), and comparing (17) the encoded combined radiation with the encoding of the encoding illuminating radiation; thereby detecting the authenticity of the reflected radiation conveying the biometric image associated with the body organ placed on the main face.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.