Saliva a possible new biometric mode?
03 March, 2009
category: Biometrics, Health
A new world-wide survey of human saliva microbiomes, the various bacteria found in human saliva, conducted by Mark Stonking, a molecular anthropologist from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, shows that saliva could potentially be used as a unique authenticator for biometrics, according to an article from The Escapist.
In addition to potentially being capable of identifying an individual ,much like a fingerprint, testing ones saliva can also identify various genetic information such as lineage, age, allergies and discover whether or not the user is carrying certain diseases.
While one thought on this is that saliva could possibly be used as another form of biometric identification for various security and access control purposes, the largest opportunity lies within its medical identification purposes. Potentially, an unconscious patient in an emergency room would only need to give a saliva sample for a doctor to gather vital information such as medical allergies and other pre-existing conditions.
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