'Quantum biometrics’ exploits eye’s ability to detect photons

A research team is working on an innovative biometric identification technique that would identify individuals by the way their eyes detect photons.Michail Loulakis at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece, and his team, have used the well-known ability of the human eye to detect single photons to develop the biometric identification technique.A report on the technique by MIT's tech review noted that humans' light-detection machinery relies on rhodopsin molecules in retinal rod cells to detect single photons and then on a complex mechanism of phototransduction to send this signal to the brain.But humans can also detect a flash of light containing just a handful of photons. This photon detection process is a quantum mechanism and is governed by the laws of quantum physics.”We here use the photon counting principles of human rod vision to propose a secure quantum biometric identification based on the quantum-statistical properties of retinal photon detection,” said the researchers in their synopsis.”The probabilities for a false positive and a false negative identification of this biometric technique can readily approach 10−10 and 10−4, respectively. The security of the biometric method can be further quantified by the physics of quantum measurements. An impostor must be able to perform quantum thermometry and quantum magnetometry with energy resolution better than 10−9ℏ, in order to foil the device by non-invasively monitoring the biometric activity of a user.”

Also in the news:

Aware reports FY 2020 results Indian fraudster tricks SIM fingerprint database New York puts face recognition at centre of security plans