Communications of the ACM
Could Ears Be the Perfect Biometric?
Credit: University of Southampton
Ear identification could provide as distinctive a form of identification as fingerprints, says University of Southampton's Mark Nixon, a professor in the School of Electronics and Computer Science's Communications, Signal Processing, and Control research group. Nixon is studying ear biometrics, and believes there are possible applications in security systems. He says the ear provides a cradle-to-grave method of identification because it does not change much over the course of a person's life. For a security system, photos of individual ears could be matched against a comparative database.
"During walk-throughs at security checkpoints, cameras could digitally photograph passers-by comparing their ears against others in a database," Nixon says. "Used in combination with face recognition, ear recognition offers a second point of comparison in cases where all or part of a face might be obstructed, for example, by make-up."
Nixon also believes images of ears would draw fewer privacy concerns, compared to a database of facial images.
From University of Southampton (United Kingdom)
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