
Neither fingerprints nor facial recognition. In the future, our smartphones will be unlocked with our breath. Each individual, in fact, is equipped with a unique way of allowing air to flow through the mouth, due to the different conformation of the airways, pharynx, larynx and paranasal cavities, as well as differences in the speed of respiratory emission. This feature could help develop a new type of authentication test to make our mobile phones even more secure, overcoming a weakness that exists with the methodologies currently in use.
The first to realize the potential of the new type of release was a team of Indian scientists from the Madras Institute of Technology in Chennai, who began almost casually experimenting with breathing data recorded by an air velocity sensor to see if it could to be read by Artificial Intelligence. The initial aim was to understand whether the technology could help us identify people suffering from breathing difficulties, with the aim of being able to create more effective medicines. However, it soon became clear that the data collected indicated much more.
The tests were conducted on 94 volunteers of both sexes, from whom 10 consecutive breaths were recorded, using an air velocity sensor capable of taking over 10,000 readings per second. The collected data was analyzed by AI software, creating a breathing profile for each individual. Thanks to this, the researchers were able to verify with an accuracy of 97% whether or not a new breath was coming from the subject in question, simply based on the speed of the emission.
According to Mahesh Panchagnula, head of the experiments, the results can be drastically improved by perfecting the procedure thanks to the inclusion of new parameters to be discovered (air density, temperature, composition, etc…). The fruits obtained so far have provided a glimpse of the potential of such an approach, which implies a unique characteristic: it only works with living people. Current smartphones can, in fact, be unlocked even using a dead person's finger or face, but in no case would it be possible to replicate their breathing.