We've had fingerprints for years as unique identifiers of individuals and in recent times their uniqueness has been successfully employed for access control. More recently they've been followed by voiceprints and iris scans as unique personal attributes that can be used for access to information systems. But brain waves?Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Though there is little doubt that if any behavioral biometric can be used as a reliable identifier, evidence for that uniqueness can be found in the brain and measured, brain prints as ubiquitous biometrics face every obstacle we discussed in our post, The challenges confronting any new biometric modality and then some.
The linked article doesn't make any mention of the sensor to be used to collect brain prints, much less offer a vision for how a future identification scenario might work.
This is one of those subjects that is intensely interesting from a Ph.D.'s point of view (invention) but not so much from an engineering or business perspective (innovation). Brain prints as a biometric will face significant — I dare say insurmountable — challenges in finding its way into wide use as a commercial ID management application any time soon.
