ISO/IEC 19794-9:2007 specifies a data record interchange format for recording, storing, and transmitting one or more hand vascular images. Each image is accompanied by image-specific metadata contained in a header record. ISO/IEC 29109-9:2011 establishes tests for checking the correctness of the binary record. It defines a testing methodology to ensure conformance of a vendor's application or service to ISO/IEC 19794-9:2007.

The objective of ISO/IEC 19794-9:2007 cannot be completely achieved until biometric products can be tested to determine whether they conform to those specifications. Conforming implementations are a necessary prerequisite for achieving interoperability among implementations. The conformance test assertions will cover, as much as is practical, the ISO/IEC 19794 requirements (covering the most critical features), so that the conformity results produced by the test suites will reflect the real degree of conformity of the implementations to ISO/IEC 19794 data interchange format records. This is the motivation for the development of this conformance testing methodology.