Behavioral Biometrics
Behavioral Biometrics History, Applications, and Technology
From Morse Code to Keyboards
A brief history of key events and developments in behavioral biometrics
1940s
Morse code authentication in WWII
The earliest form of behavioral biometrics dates to World War Two. During the war, Allied forces became adept at recognizing one another based on individual signaling patterns, using these to authenticate sensitive messages.
1959
Machine learning gets its name
Artificial intelligence pioneer Arthur Samuel gives this name to a theoretical computer’s ability to learn on its own, without human intervention—a capability that would someday become critical to behavioral biometrics.
1960s
First model of acoustic speech production
MIT Drs. Gunnar Fant and Kenneth Stevens first model speech production using x-rays of speaking subjects. Their findings are the first suggest a link between behavior—in this case, speech—and individual biology and identity.
1970
Behavioral components of speech mapped
Dr. Joseph Perkell creates an early form of biometric modeling using full-motion x-rays and the previous work of Drs. Fant and Stevens. This work would eventually lead to the biometric voice recognition tools still in use today
1991
Birth of the world wide web
Computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web (WWW) As the world’s first publicly accessible way of visiting web pages via hyperlinks, the WWW would lead to the eventual development and popularization of the Internet as we know it today.
2001
I dream of big data
Tim Berners-Lee dreams up a new technology, called the ‘semantic web’ where computers are able to scan and analyze all data available on the Internet.
2001
Sept 11th and continuous authentication1
In a now highly-networked world, the the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center draw attention to the need for continuous authentication as a new security measure in global information systems.
2002
Data mining and biometrics converge
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launches Total Information Awareness (TIA), the first large-scale use of technologies designed to mine data sets for identifying biometric information.
2006
Early Plurilock research
A University of Victoria team develops innovative new algorithms that rapidly and transparently identify computer users as they work. This team will later become Plurilock, and the algorithms will later be patented.
2012
DARPA launches active authentication program
In pursuit of increased security across devices operated by the U.S. military, DARPA launches the Active Authentication (AA) program—the first widespread application of behavioral biometrics authentication.
2016
Plurilock is founded
2006–2016
After 35,000 hours of research, development, and algorithm refinement by top Ph.D scientists (who literally wrote the book on Behavioral Biometrics) Plurilock emerges as a major player in the authentication scene
2016–Present
Plurilock is officially founded and launches its AWARE and DEFEND products using now patented algorithms to bring continuous authentication to highly-regulated environments like government, critical infrastructure, financial services, and healthcare.
- Traore, D., and Ahmed, A. 2012. Continuous Authentication Using Biometrics: Data, Models, and Metrics. University of Victoria
