Bioelectrical signals: A novel approach towards human authentication

Abstract

Human authentication based on electrical bio-signals, or bioelectrical signals, is a rapidly growing research area due to increasing demand for establishing the identity of a person, with high confidence, in a number of applications in our vastly interconnected society. Studies show that bioelectrical signals can be not only employed for diagnostic purposes in medicine, but also used in human authentication since they have unique features among individuals. This article reviews examples of up-to-date researches that have applied bioelectrical signals like Electrocardiogram (ECG), Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Electrooculogram (EOG) in human authentication. Utilizing bioelectrical signals provides a novel approach to user authentication that contains all the crucial attributes of previous traditional authentication. The most significant reasons for deployment of electrical bio-signals in user authentication include their measurability, uniqueness, universality and resistance to spoofing, while other conventional biometrics like face shape, hand shape, fingerprint and voice can be artificially generated.