The use of digital devices and network connections are increasing at a rapid pace. And so is the same with the need for online and global security solutions. The old smart cards are outdated and even (some) biometric security technologies can be hacked or faked, if we should believe some movies.
In reality these things may be different, such as the security at a Belgium nuclear plant. Where the guards are using electronic ID cards and one card was stolen. Sadly the guard was murdered for this. Perhaps a strange strike of luck for him that they didn't use biometrics at that time. The terrorists only needed a security pass and not an eye or the palm of the guard's hand to be scanned for entry. These type of situations in nuclear plants are a call for a tight security with state of the art biometrics.
In today's world a new security check by means of biometrics is in it's first steps of introduction in the public domain: The Biometric Brainprint.
Cyber Mind
Many new technologies and devices are focused on connection with the human body and especially the brain. And we don't necessarily mean implants or cyborgs. Wearing the digital technology is now the prelude. And the mind or brain interface is around the corner. This new biometric technology is a combination of various technologies. And it works with images as well.
The website Spectrum has written an article about the Biometric Brainprint:
Several early attempts at EEG-based identification sought the equivalent of a fingerprint in the electrical activity of a brain at rest. But this new brain biometric, which its inventors call CEREBRE, dodges the cancelability problem because it’s based on the brain’s responses to a sequence of particular types of images.
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/brainprint-biometric-id-hits-100-accuracy
Big Biometric
In many futuristic sci-fi movies we can see a world filled with biometric security control systems. Some people describe it as a Big Brother system. A term coming from that famous book 1984 by George Orwell. A story about a dystopian society where privacy is gone and people are constantly being watched and monitored. Observation and security technology such as biometric systems can be used for the good or bad, as it is with many things.
One of the best examples of a biometric control society is shown in the TV series Continuum. The main character Kiera, who is a police officer in the year 2077, has a brain implant. With this implant she can communicate with the mainframe and use the implant as some kind of extra sensory perception device. For example: she can see small particles and analyze them. She can scan a person's eye and detect by changes of pupils and color of the eyes if that person speaks the truth.
Her brain implant is the nucleus of biometrics. It connects with the security mainframe and also with her body system. To check for possible hacks, errors or violations, within her. When she refuses a certain command then her implant decreases her capacities or even shuts it down...
The Ultimate Security Check
But today is not that day of the ultimate security check.
The biometric brainprint may be very usefull and a beginning of the airtight security... still someone somewhere will find a way to hack or fool the biometric brainprint, for now.
Meanwhile Kiera is still using the good ol' brain implant biometrics.
