An anonymous reader writes: On a planet hosting 6.7 billion human beings, having proof you’re unique is of tantamount importance. The ear, it turns out, may be the best identification yet.
Through a new shape-finding algorithm called “image ray transform,” which boasts 99.6 percent accuracy, according to a study presented at the IEEE Fourth International Conference on Biometrics Sept. 29, the outer ear may prove to be one of the most accurate and least intrusive ways to identify people.
Fingerprint databases of U.S. government agencies alone store the records of more than 100 million people, but prints can rub off or callous over during hard or repetitive labor. With the advent of computer vision, researchers and identification industries are seeking easier and more robust biometrics to get their hands on.
The technology can identify an ear time after time with 99.6 percent accuracy. It works by unleashing a ray-producing algorithm on an image to seek out curved features. When a ray finds one, the software draws over the part and repeats the analysis. In a few hundred or thousand cycles, it cleanly paints the ear more than any other face structure.
Nixon and Cummings acknowledged some limitations of the system, including hair covering the ears, less-than-ideal lighting conditions, and different IDs generated from different angles. And using the ear as a biometric isn’t without critics.
“I have seen no scientific proof that the ear doesn’t change significantly over time. People tend to believe notions like these, and they are repeated over time,” said Anil Jain, a computer scientist at Michigan State University who was not involved in the study. “Fingerprinting has a history of 100 years showing that it works, unless you destroy your fingerprints or work in an industry that gives you calluses.”