Smartphones have become essential companions. But they also open new opportunities for privacy invasions.
With smartphones, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain our privacy.
In most cases, our smartphone has more information about us than any person possibly could. They keep track of where we live, work, and go for lunch every day.
They have our personal information, our family photographs, passwords, they know every person we talk to, and what we’ve said to them. For hackers, our phones have all the information they require.
To keep a check on the hackers, many smartphones now include facial recognition, fingerprint scans, and other biometric systems. But the problem with these is that once compromised they cannot be reset.
“You can’t grow a new fingerprint or iris if that information is divulged,” said Wenyao Xu, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo (UB) in the U.S.
Mind-reading smartphones will use brain passwords instead of traditional passwords.
Recently, scientists have developed an amazing safety system that will recognize an individual by reading their brainwaves in response to a series of pictures.
“That’s why we’re developing a new type of password — one that measures your brainwaves in response to a series of pictures. Like a password, it’s easy to reset; and like a biometric, it’s easy to use,” said Xu.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first in-depth research study on a truly cancelable brain biometric system. We refer to this as ‘hard cancellation,’ meaning the original brain password can be reset without divulging the user’s identity,” said Zhanpeng Jin, an associate professor at UB.
Brain passwords would probably have massive implications in banking, law enforcement, airport security, and other areas.
