Biometrics Can Read Your Mind

Some strange strides are being made on the biometric front these days. An Israeli company has developed a high-tech sensor technology that can identify an individual by sensing the unique electronic signals generated by their brain waves, beating heart or breathing patterns. According to the press release from Idesia, the Biodynamic Signature (BDS) sensor is smaller and more durable than normal fingerprint readers, not to mention more reliable and cheaper to manufacture.

Those simpler sensors have made inroads into the manufacturing plant environment, and for good reason. Magnetic cards or PINs that grant employee access to off-limits areas or files, or monitor time cards/attendance etc. are vulnerable to social engineering tricks as new as password hacking and as old as one of the oldest tricks in the book, the “buddy system” for punching factory timecards.

I’ve also read about biometric sensors that are keyed to recognize an individual’s body odor, a sensing technology that has obvious flaws, as it wouldn’t work for people like me (who have none). And besides, haven’t you ever worked with someone whose “Odor ID” would surely overload such a system?