Heartbeat Based Biometric Identification

Heartbeat Based Biometric Identification

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Canadian company Nymi has managed to develop a unique, first of its kind, technological solution: Paying with a wrist-bracelet that can detect the heartbeat of the person wishing to pay. This special bracelet, called Nymi Band, allows to make a payment in the grocery store or any other store by indentifying the unique heartbeat signature of an individual person. Using two small ECG sensors the device can charactarize the heartbeat and to use its rate as a means for biometric identification. The first payment with the bracelet was tested 6 weeks ago at a local gas station convenience store, but that was just the beginning of a much wider test: Throughout the summer, more than a hundred people living in Toronto, Ottawa and Regina, will purchase items via this technology and state their opinion on it for improvement.

Shawn Chance, Marketing VP for the company, says that the device is perfectly safe to use. “Aside from the Bluetooth connectivity, it doesn’t actually emit anything and doesn’t actually introduce anything into the body. What it does is it introduces itself as part of a circuit to the electrical signal that is already running through your body that your heart is generating.”

Heartbeat is an individual thing, and the pattern stays constant for a long time and at any rate, which makes the device very reliable. The battery, given that the use of te device isn’t out of the ordinary, lasts for about five days and must be charged afterwards. Since this is an easy to use and reliable identification technology, it can ease people’s lives in various waves. One example of many is opening doors in high security areas or even an identification to start a computer.

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