When candidates take the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®), they will soon provide proof of identification – literally – with the palm of their hand.
GMAC® will start replacing the digital fingerprinting used now at testing centers with a sensor that records the unique pattern formed by a person’s palm veins. The new technology ensures that each test taker has a single GMAT record, preventing people from taking the test for others.
Test takers in Korea and India will be the first to “palm” pilot the system with a 90-day trial starting in July and August at all testing centers in those countries. The technology will be rolled out in other countries including the United States throughout the fall and in 27 European countries in early winter. During 2009, the sensors are expected to be in place at GMAT testing centers worldwide in accordance with the laws of the nearly one hundred countries where the exam is offered.
How it works
The PalmSecure sensor, is easier to use and less intrusive than current fingerprinting identification: You simply hold your palm several inches above the two-inch-square sensor for several seconds. Because the blood veins in your palm stay in the same position as you age and through sickness or injury, the pattern record remains unique to you.
The digital system is highly accurate. In tests on 140,000 individual palm vein patterns taken from 70,000 people, the PalmSecure device was found to be 99.99% accurate, with a false acceptance rate (i.e., the likelihood it recorded one person’s palm as someone else’s) of less than 0.00008%.
Palm vein recognition systems protect access to highly sensitive information and are used in some hospitals in the United States and in automated teller machines in Japan. Because the palm vein pattern readers use system-specific digital encryption, they provide an extra layer of privacy and assurance that the patterns cannot be used for identification by anyone else in any other context.
Testing center procedures
Each test taker will still be required to bring a valid photo ID to the testing center and have a photograph taken. First-time test takers will have both palms scanned. If they are retaking the test and have a fingerprint on file, they will provide a matching print as well as palm scans. The GMAT check-in process also requires test takers to sign a digital signature pad.
In adapting the PalmSecure sensor at more than 400 testing centers worldwide, GMAC strengthens its position as the industry leader in test security. The system is part of the ongoing efforts of GMAC to maintain test integrity and helps ensure that the GMAT exam is a fair measure of everyone’s ability.