New Biometrics
This article discusses new types of biometrics under development, including gait, scent, heartbeat, microbiome, and butt shape (no, really).
Comments
Me • September 20, 2019 7:34 AM
Butt shape? Why not. Most of the human body is pseudo-random or is influenced by unpredictable forces. Most body parts can be used for biometrics. As long as you can measure it with enough resolution and it doesn’t change too fast, you can more or less use it.
Article mentioned car theft detection. Detecting diffrence in butt shape of two people is much easier than relieable identification. It sounds ridiculous, but for car theft detection, it might actually work pretty well.
Anders • September 20, 2019 7:45 AM
Since it’s Friday, i propose new biometrics solution – fart.
Would love to ID myself in such way at the police station.
Clive Robinson • September 20, 2019 8:39 AM
@ Anders,
Since it’s Friday, i propose new biometrics solution – fart.
Actually not a new idea.
Put simply your “gut flora” is near enough unique to you. This likewise means the waste chemicals from the flora’s aerobic and anaerobic digestion has a fairly unique signiture.
Some years ago people doing work on Irritable Bowel Syndrom (IBS) and other gut related diseases were looking at using gas emmisions from both ends of the digestive tract as a diagnostic tool.
As far as I can remember it came about after observations of timber wolves, that apparently could tell from down wind what was healthy and what was not thus to be avoided for injestion.
Apparently insects can discriminate by gas emmisions as well and can detect all kinds of chemicals including non nitrate based explosives, have a search on the Internet about “Bees as Bomb Detectors”.
Sorry to “Take the wind out of your sails” as it were I’ll leave the “Gas Gags” such as “Never leave the house with the gas on” to others 😉
Sok Puppette • September 20, 2019 9:06 AM
This diversity just underlines the fact that all of this stuff should be restricted categorically, rather than piecemeal. Where “restricted” means “so restricted that it amounts to a total ban on all the applications driving the whole desire to do it”.
BraveNewWhirled • September 20, 2019 10:06 AM
Boarding an airplane already requires a full body scan.
So instead of scanning for weapons, they can just save a “fingerprint” of your entire body.
Hard to change metal implants, skeletal and dental structures.
What kind of dystopia are we building with all this?
Tatütata • September 21, 2019 1:15 PM
Since it’s Friday, i propose new biometrics solution – fart.
Indeed not a new idea. The (in)famous East German STASI began collecting odour samples of suspects and stored them in Mason jars, which could be used to orient tracking dogs.
Samples would either be collected from dissidents’ wardrobes, or collected during interrogation by placing a blank piece of fabric on the suspect’s chair, as illustrated in the 2006 film “Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others). Keep yer buttocks tight together!
And dogs do love sniffing posteriors…
vas pup • September 21, 2019 1:50 PM
I guess we should always consider separately new biometric technology and it utilization.
I see on positive side monitoring changes on biometric ‘footprint’ of the same person for health purposes in particular.
@Tatütata and Clive: odor biometrics in sense specified above have huge potential.
Monitoring changes in the natural person’s odor could flag changes in the health, emotional state.
Also,folks with same natural odor pattern are compatible on the basic biological level for being in the same team(including long flight into space, e.g. to Mars, for long term relationships, etc.)
In each and every biometric application should be considered cost-benefit analysis to make final decision.
Dave • September 22, 2019 9:58 PM
It seems that this focus on specific biometrics (face, how you walk, heartbeat, microbiomes, etc.) is just part of the earliest stages. Eventually, the AI system will look at every conceivable sensible aspect of you to build a signature, including things we humans never thought of. It will also be able to tell our mood and psychological profile, who we have been in contact with (e.g. microbiomes), who we are related to, information about hobbies and lifestyle (e.g. how we walk may be influenced by our exercise patterns), etc. Therefore, regulations focusing on specific methods will be out-dated very quickly.
Jose Sardinas • September 23, 2019 8:04 AM
I’m curious… if you are stopped by a member of any authority, and they seize your device, I know you have the right to not give up your passwords and they cannot legally “extract” anything that resides in your mind but, Can they force you to put your finger on the reader, stare to the camera, blow at the sensor, etc?
That’s technically the same as seizing your keys from your person. How far does the legislation cover us in the event of being detained/interrogated?
@ Moderator,
The above from “Alex” is unsolicited service advertising.
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patrick • September 20, 2019 7:32 AM
I wonder if they have LL Cool J working on the “big ole butt” profiler.