UK BIOMETRIC FINGERPRINT REPALCING PASSWORDS IN BATTLE TO PROTECT DEVICES WITH DATA STOREDBBC NEWS | Magazine | The password for your next phone is...The password for your next phone is...
By Tom Geoghegan
BBC News Magazine

As mobile phones get more sophisticated, is a PIN or password sufficient to keep them from prying eyes? Help is at hand or, more specifically, on your fingertips.

Singer Charlotte Church suffered an indignity when saucy pictures of her were distributed from her boyfriend's mislaid phone.

It could have happened to anyone. Leave your phone or PDA in a pub and the chances are you've lost more than a few numbers.

If you've got some of the latest functions, there could be private pictures, e-mails, work documents and favourite internet sites, all in the hands of a thief.

All the thief has to do is unlock it, which is usually straightforward, or crack the PIN.

But consumers should soon be able to fight back with a new weapon - their fingerprints.

Open Sesame

Biometric technology is already well known for its controversial use on the UK's proposed new identity cards. But the integration of fingerprint sensors on to mobile phones, laptops and PCs is still relatively new.

Several companies are racing to have their fingerprint security devices adopted for the potentially lucrative phone market.

Users would typically have to roll their index finger over a small sensor to register their prints. It needs several correct readings to register the user.

Then every time they want to log on, or unlock the device, they roll their finger over it again and, Open Sesame, they're in.

It informs users if it hasn't read their prints properly, with instructions like "too fast". Put a different finger on and access is denied, because every fingerprint, even on the same person, is different.

The sensor also doubles as a mouse or a navigation tool for web browsing, gaming and menu scrolling.

"There are more and more cases of computers being stolen with critical data," says Alan Kramer of UPEK, one of the companies developing the technology. "The growth in technological gadgets people carry, and with more and more important data, means the need to secure that data increases."

Thieves are much easier able to access a device via a password than a fingerprint, he says, and this layer of security can be additionally used to protect the hard drive or any other applications.

For PCs in the workplace, this eliminates the need to remember and then change a password every few weeks. It doesn't spell the end for passwords but it's another layer of security.


And it can also combat identity theft, says Mr Kramer. "With everything going virtual, security based on a few numbers is scary. The fact you can get into an account and empty it based on a code - that's one of the biggest drivers for this.

"Only biometrics give a unique link to a human being. Whether the technology is based on password or code, none of that gives you proof of who it is."

There are also moves to combat the possibility of someone stealing another's fingerprints, with companies like Senselect developing a biometric PIN, which entails using a number of digits in sequence.

Adult check

Fingerprint security adds about £30 to the cost of a laptop, but that is predicted to fall. Hi-tech mobiles in Japan are using it although most phone operators are yet to embrace it.

The mobile market will pick up, Mr Kramer says, when m-commerce takes off. He also sees potential in using fingerprints to restrict adult content or gambling sites to under-18s.

Members of the US military use their fingerprints to access bases in Korea and Germany, and police in Malaysia carry PDAs with fingerprint scanners to check driving licences. And doors and safes are opened using prints.


Instructions help the user enrol his prints
Mr Kramer believes far more radical uses are on the way, such as replacing signatures in paying for goods in stores, and use as a universal "key" to open your front door and car.

He acknowledges there is a Big Brother fear about biometrics but says fingerprint data is self-contained on the device and not stored elsewhere.

Other firms such as AuthenTec, which says it has sensors in more than three million mobile phones worldwide, and DigitalPersona, also sense this is about to take off.

But why now?

FINGERPRINT USES
Opening doors
Key for home and car
Buying goods in-store
Accessing a safe
"A mobile phone isn't just used as a mobile anymore," says Phil Robinson, chief technology officer for security firm IRM.

"People are carrying around portable computers in their pockets that have an added functionality of being mobiles. Therefore it's a natural progression for these to be used as attack vectors."

He says fingerprint access would probably deter the casual thief because it's another layer of security to crack.

But criminals will still have the final word.

"It would add another obstacle, but I'm not wholly convinced it would be the complete answer to security. There's always ways and means."




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