Turning a Smartphone Display Into a Biometric Scanner

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 25, 2015 @03:36AM from the don't-make-the-obvious-jokes dept.

New submitter jan_jes writes: Recent mobile phones integrate fingerprint scanners to authenticate users biometrically and replace passwords, making authentication more convenient. Researchers at Yahoo Labs have created a new technology called "Bodyprint," which turns your smartphone's touchscreen display into a biometric scanner. It allows the touch sensor to scan users' body parts (PDF) such as ears, fingers, fists, and palms by pressing them against the display. Bodyprint implements the four-eye principle for locking sensitive documents — accessing the document can require the presence of two or more people involved with the project. Another application is authenticating a user to answer a call by scanning their ear pressed against the phone.

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Re:Biometric snake oil by Anonymous Coward · 2015-04-25 06:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, but the difference is that a 2-letter password can be cracked by a single person. With this biometric thing, you have to go find 200 different people to press the phone up to their ears.