Your Heartbeat as Your Password

Researchers at a university in Taiwan are examining technology that identifies a heartbeat pattern and saves it as a password. Each person's heart beats in their own irregular pattern, and researchers hope they can build a recognition system, triggered by touch, into external hard drives for protection.

The possibility of a heartbeat serving as password may be a science fiction concept turned reality, but this and other security measures have the potential to give maximum, individualized security if the team is able to execute it properly.

The research team, led by Chun-Liang Lin at the National Chung Hsing University, used an electrocardiograph (ECG) machine to detect the heart pattern readings from the palm of both hands, turning the reading into an encryption key. Since every heart has its own irregular beat, one that never fully repeats itself, the system identifies specific mathematical patterns used for the password.

A heartbeat joins other physical identifiers that make for useful passwords, like fingerprints, eye scans or facial recognition. But such technologies aren't perfect, and can backfire. For example, Samsung used facial recognition in the Galaxy Nexus, but a photo of the user tricked the security wall.

But advents in personalized security offer benefits beyond a flashy interaction. A traditional, typed password using familiar terms or acronyms can backfire if shared, or if cracked by hackers. A heartbeat, however, cannot be faked, though it is unclear if the ECG code would work for people with heart problems.

Vital information is finding its way to digital drives more than ever, as hard copies fall by the wayside from bank statements to health records. As a result, it is beneficial to all users to have utmost protection, the strongest of which might be something uniquely, entirely personal.