Securing Electronics with Sweat Analysis.

• Position: AUTHENTICATION

Jan Halamek believes there is a better method to securing electronic devices--and it relies on our own sweat. Halamek, assistant professor of chemistry at the University at Albany (N.Y.), has released a concept paper in ChemPhysChem that proposes a new biometric-based authentication approach for unlocking mobile and wearable devices, such as smartphones and smartwatches.

The approach relies on analyzing skin secretions--or sweat--to build an amino acid profile that is unique to the device's owner. The profile would be stored and used for identification purposes each time an attempt to unlock is made.

"We are developing a new form of security that could completely change the authentication process for electronic devices," says Halamek. "Using sweat as an identifier cannot be easily mimicked or hacked by potential intruders. It's close to full-proof."

Skin secretions contain a large number of metabolites that can be targeted for authentication analysis. To build a profile, the device first would have a "monitoring period" in which it would measure its owner's sweat levels at various times of the day For example, those who work overnight shifts would have a vastly...