Heartbeats Could Replace Passwords

The average person has 30 to 50 accounts requiring a password, but uses only about five different passwords. And the most common password is still “password.”

Security experts say people should use a different password for each account, with each password at least 14 characters long.

Instead of memorizing all those passwords, what if the key to unlocking everything could be linked to something unique about you — like the rhythm of your heart?

That’s what biometric researchers in Toronto have come up with.

Like fingerprints, heart rhythms are unique. The peaks and troughs mapped out by an electrocardiogram are affected by the heart’s unique characteristics, including size and shape.

A company called Bionym is working to make passwords obsolete by using a person’s heart rhythm as a biometric pass code.

“We put this into a wristband so that when you put it on, it knows that it’s you,” Bionym CEO Karl Martin told Here & Now. “And then it can communicate your identity to systems in a secure manner around you.”  Here and Now