Distributed source coding (DSC) is typically used to compress information from multiple correlated sources that do not communicate with each other. In this paper, DSC principles are used to secure biometric data in a multimodal hand-based recognition system, introducing a novel approach for Log-Likelihood Ratio initialization and a new binarization technique. The proposed biometric recognition system relies on a new architecture using three hand-based biometric traits: palmprint, finger surface and hand geometry, being the latter used as a soft biometric to accelerate the identification process. Promising results are achieved in terms of recognition accuracy, speed and security when performing identification on large databases, like the UST Hand Image Database.