Palm-Reading Prototype: Intel Turns to Biometrics for Password IDs

By emeadows
September 19, 2012

Passwords for online banking, social networks and email could soon be replaced by the wave of a hand if Intel’s prototype technology comes to fruition.
The technology aims “to do away with the need to remember passwords for growing numbers of online services,” reports Reuters. “Intel researchers have put together a tablet with new software and a biometric sensor that recognizes the unique patterns of veins on a person’s palm.”
“The problem with passwords — we use too many of them, their rules are complex, and they differ for different websites,” notes Sridhar Iyengar, director of security research at Intel Labs. “There is a way out of it, and biometrics is an option.”
“Making laptops, tablets and smartphones responsible for identifying users would take that requirement away from individual websites and do away with the need to individually enter passwords into each of them, Iyengar said.”
To answer security issue questions, Reuters explains that “a device using the technology would use built-in accelerometers to detect when a user puts it down, and would then log its owner off to keep unauthorized people from getting in.”
According to Intel CTO Justin Rattner, the palm-reading technology will require software and sensors built into devices, but not the development of new chips.

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