In the near future, gym-goers may no longer have to fumble around with IDs to gain access to the Rec Hall fitness center.

Taking the place of cards to identify a person with a gym membership, a system called HandKey has been installed in the west campus fitness center to recognize a person by characteristics of the hand.

"It was one of those things we thought was kind of cool, a Star Trek- or Star Wars-type thing," said Chip Harrison, head strength and conditioning coach at Penn State.

Officials said the new system would allow gym patrons the convenience of working out without carrying a card and also ensure that students do not enter the gym using someone else's card. However, there is a roadblock -- though the system is installed, some of the technology isn't compatible with existing configurations, so the date for the new system is tentatively set for within the next two years.

The Schlage HandKey, manufactured by Ingersoll-Rand, takes three readings of the hand's characteristics to create a template, Tom Brigham, spokesman for Schlage Recognition Systems, said. During the initial readings, 90 different points on the hand are registered in three dimensions -- length, width and depth -- that function as key identifying features when the hand is dropped into the reader later on, Brigham said.

The geometry of the hand itself is not stored in the system, Brigham said. Instead, a representation of the hand's shape and distinctive unique qualities is saved.

Various models of The HandKey have been making their way onto college campuses across the country, Brigham said. Some universities use the readers in place of a card system to enter residence halls, laboratories and dining halls in addition to their recreation and fitness centers.

Depending on the model and the packaging of the hand reader, an individual unit can cost anywhere between $1,000 and $2,500, Brigham said, compared to card readers that typically cost $350 to $400.

When examining some prospective biometric readers to install at Penn State, Harrison said fingerprint readers and retinal scanners were among the options, but the HandKey is less invasive and less of a privacy issue than other readers.

West Virginia University has been using a hand reader instead of a card-reading system at its Student Recreation Center for more than a year, said Dave Weimer, membership manager at the center.

Freshmen at West Virginia can choose to deactivate identification cards to strictly use the HandKey and have had a positive reaction to the new system, Weimer said.

"The only problem is it's not 100 percent accurate with smaller hands, so some of our female members with smaller hands sometimes have a problem, but it's not a major situation." Weimer said.

The prospect of gym-goers being card-free when they work out has been a major selling point for biometric readers in health clubs, Brigham said. The system also presents less of an issue with security than with card readers, Brigham said. He said compromising biometric information is virtually impossible because, unlike an identification card, a person's hand configuration cannot be lost or stolen.

"[Using your hand as identification is] verifying and authenticating that it is you," Brigham said. "Cards only verify and authenticate that the card is there."

Although the HandKey has been installed in Rec Hall, it may not be usable for up to two years, because Blackboard Inc., the host of the program that Penn State uses to read and deal with identification cards, does not currently collaborate with the HandKey, Harrison said.

"If we can get the [HandKey] to interface with Blackboard, then we can replace the card readers or have the hand scanners in addition to card readers in all the locations [that currently have only card readers]," he said.

Kathryn Jablokow, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State Great Valley, said because technology is always changing, staying on track with updates is important when choosing a new technology. She said she thinks the HandKey is a good choice because an excessively high-resolution reader such as a fingerprint scanner is not necessary for Penn State's purposes.

"It's a little easier to stick your hand in and align it than trying to align a fingerprint," Jablokow said. "It's new technology with convenience."