Researchers want to use sweat as an identifier for smartphones
Researchers from the University of Albany in the US state of New York have proposed a new biometric authentication method to unlock smartphones, for example. This method is based on scanning the chemical composition of sweat.
The scientists use this authentication method to analyze a user’s sweat, which is used to build up an amino acid profile of the user. This profile is unique per person. The profile is then stored on the used device and every time someone wants to unlock the device, it is used to identify the user.
According to the researchers, the use of sweat as an identifier is a new method that is not easy to imitate by unauthorized third parties. The reason for this is that sweat contains quite a lot of metabolites such as amino acids, which can be used for an authentication analysis. A person does not have to sweat for the analysis; our hands and fingers are full of sweat coming from eccrine glands. This sweat has a fairly high concentration of substances, which facilitates the analysis.
Building a unique personal profile takes some time. During a certain period of time, a user has to measure his own sweat values several times a day. This cannot be limited to a single measurement moment, because someone’s sweat profile, for example, looks very different in the middle of the night than during the day. Things like age, gender, race and the psychological state of the person also play a role. Our hormones regulate the presence of the different substances in our sweat, and because the hormone levels differ in everyone, it is not possible for two people to have the same profile, according to the researchers.
The researchers want to use this method not only to improve existing authentication methods; According to the inventors, it can also be an effective independent method for certain disabled people, who, for example, cannot move their fingers or not properly. According to the scientists, the method has been successfully tested in the laboratory, but it still needs to be expanded and further developed by technicians before it can eventually be used in practice. It is not clear when that may be the case.
More authentication methods have been proposed that make use of certain characteristics of the human body. For example, scientists have developed an identification system that can identify users and allow them to log in by measuring their heart and heart rate. A way has also been developed to unlock a smartphone by making a scan of certain body parts, such as an ear or palm. This technology works through the smartphone’s capacitive touchscreen. By holding a body part against the screen, a scan can be made, which identifies the user.
The research was published as a paper in the scientific journal ChemPhysChem, under the title Promises and Challenges in Continuous Tracking Utilizing Amino Acids in Skin Secretions for Active Multi-Factor Biometric Authentication for Cybersecurity.