New York Sep 26 (IANS) Forget facial recognition technology or fingerprint computer identification as researchers have developed a computer security system using the dimensions of the heart as identifier.
"No two people with identical hearts have ever been found " said the study s lead author Wenyao Xu Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo in New York.
And people s hearts do not change shape unless they suffer from serious heart disease he said.
The system which may eventually be used for smartphones and at airport screening barricades is a safe and potentially more effective alternative to passwords and other biometric identifiers the researchers said.
"We would like to use it for every computer because everyone needs privacy " Xu said.
"Logging-in and logging-out are tedious " he said.
To make sure no one else steps in to run your computer the system uses low-level Doppler radar to measure your heart and then continually monitors your heart.
The system needs about eight seconds to scan a heart the first time and thereafter the monitor can continuously recognise that heart.
The researchers are scheduled to present a paper describing the technology at the 23rd Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Communication (MobiCom) in Utah in October.
The signal strength of the system s radar "is much less than Wi-Fi " and therefore does not pose any health threat Xu said.
"We are living in a Wi-Fi surrounding environment every day and the new system is as safe as those Wi-Fi devices " he said.
The system which was three years in the making uses the geometry of the heart its shape and size and how it moves to make an identification.
Heart-based biometrics systems have been used for almost a decade primarily with electrodes measuring electrocardiogram signals "but no one has done a non-contact remote device to characterise our hearts geometry traits for identification " he said.
The new system has several advantages over current biometric tools like fingerprints and retinal scans Xu said.
First it is a passive non-contact device so users are not bothered with authenticating themselves whenever they log-in.
And second it monitors users constantly. This means the computer will not operate if a different person is in front of it. Therefore people do not have to remember to log-off when away from their computers.
The system could also be used for user identification on cell phones.
--IANS
gb/bg
