Is Handwriting The Next Biometrics Trend?

Handwriting analysis has become a popular subject for criminologists thanks to TV procedurals like “Law & Order” and “CSI,” but what if the pseudoscience could be put to use to keep smartphones and mobile devices more secure than regular passwords can?

That’s the thinking behind Biometric Signature ID’s latest Kickstarter project, BioTect-ID — a noninvasive mobile security app that uses users’ unique handwriting to unlock devices. Instead of fingerprint readers or facial recognition systems, which have proved unreliable at best, Biometric Signature ID CEO Jeff Maynard explained that the use of often imperfect, idiosyncratic and highly personal handwriting tendencies can provide an unexpectedly high level of security on mobile devices.

“BioTect-ID is completely non-invasive,” Maynard said in a statement. “Physical biometrics like irises, fingerprints, and facial features are irreplaceable and gone forever if stolen. Drawing style is simply a gesture that can be revised or replaced any time. There’s no need to provide information about your body. We think that should stay private. Biometric identification will soon be a fact of life. As technologies compete, there is an urgent need for gesture biometrics like BioTect-ID which can’t be stolen, use no static physical information, and protect consumer body privacy without sacrificing accuracy.”

Maynard also touted BioTect-ID’s natural two-step verification process as an added layer of security. Not only do would-be hackers need to know the password of the account they’re looking to compromise, but they also need an intimate level of knowledge about how that person forms the letters, numbers and symbols of their password. Maynard claimed that in 10,000 tests of BioTect-ID where the “hackers” were simply provided with the correct passwords, the technology was still 99.97 percent effective in restricting access, which surpasses benchmarks set by the National Institute for Standards for Technology by 300 percent, according to the company release.

The security solution will remain live on Kickstarter for the standard 30 days, though it has also drawn interest from the White House for use in a pilot program to improve the security of online transactions — all with nothing but a few swipes of the finger.