Texas University trial tracks biometric mouse movements

A new study performed on students at the University of Texas has demonstrated the feasibility of a new gesture-based biometric system that does not require any expensive hardware other than a standard mouse.

Biometric Signature ID (BSI) has just announced the results of a study using its software-only biometric for student authentication. "The study was very successful with 100% of participants from nine campuses able to enrol and validate multiple times throughout the course," said Jeff Maynard, CEO of Biometric Signature ID.

According to Lori McNabb, Assistant Director at the University of Texas System TeleCampus: "BSI's biometric technology is a new twist compared to the more traditional biometrics like fingerprint scanners as they do not require any special hardware or installation. The technology was found to be extremely effective with 99% of surveyed students having a positive experience."

Software only biometrics are clearly an attractive option as they eliminate the need to roll out expensive hardware, and allow updates to the technology to be cost effective and frequent. In this instance a user uses their mouse to write a password, code or set of symbols in order to get recognised. Other examples of such technology include keystroke dynamics, which verifies the identity of users via their unique typing rhythms, and to some extent speaker verification over the phone.

Maynard told Planet Biometrics that the Texas University experiment was set up as a user acceptance trial and the company was delighted to find that nearly 40% of students thought the BSI system was entertaining and 80% of students spent more time in the system than was asked.

Maynard also said that in the region of 80% of the students admitted to actively attempting to crack the system, making it difficult to accurately assess traditional statistics, such as false reject rate. However, Maynard told Planet Biometrics that in its own laboratory trials, 99% of genuine users are able to be recognised by their second attempt.

According to BSI, the re-authorized Education Act requires an institution that offers distance education to have processes that establish the student who registers in a distance education course is the same student who participates in and completes the program and receives the academic credit.

"It is not just about finding a lower cost replacement for proctoring exams to ensure academic integrity," says Maynard. "The need is to find identity proofing solutions that can be used efficiently in all distance learning environments including discussion groups, attendance checking, paper submissions, or accessing personal student files."

The pilot project involved eight academic and one medical branch campus over a five week period where students had to authenticate their identity remotely 10 times. The purpose of the pilot was to gauge user acceptance and test the technology. Forty-five faculty members gave permission to canvas their students resulting in 167 students completing the enrolment process.

Fifty-two percent of participating students were undergraduates and 38% were graduate students. Fifty percent of participating students were from math and sciences, business and education courses, while students from humanities, fine arts, nursing, and various medical disciplines made up the balance.

Of the students who completed the project - enrolment, ten validations, and a feedback survey, 97% felt enrolment was easy and 93% said the same about the validation process.

Average authentication took 21.5 seconds and an interesting by product of the trial was that only one help desk call was made throughout the trial, thanks predominantly to the company's authentication set up which allows users to re-submit their biometric enrolment if they can pass a second authentication step based on following a picture-based password.
 

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