The Ear

The researchers are exploring ways to detect the ears' features like they were fingerprints. A group of British researchers used a process called "image ray transform" to shoot light rays at human ears, and then repeat an algorithm to draw an image of the tubular-shaped parts of the organ. The curved edges around the rim of the ear is a characteristic -- and most obvious -- example. Then, the researchers converted the images into a series of numbers marking the image as your own. Finally, it's just a matter of a machine scanning your ears again, and matching it up to what's already stored in the system, which the researchers were able to do accurately 99.6 percent of the time. In March of 2012, a pair of New Delhi scientists also tried scanning ears using Gabor filters -- a kind of digital image processor similar to human vision, but were accurate to a mere 92 to 96.9 percent, according to a recent survey of ear biometric research.

 

It may even be possible to develop ear-scanning in a way that makes it more reliable than fingerprints. The reason is because your fingerprints can callous over when doing a lot of hard work. But ears, by and large, don't change much over the course of a lifespan. There's a debate around this, however, and fingerprinting has a much longer and established history behind it. A big question is whether ear-scanning will work given different amounts of light, or when covered (even partially) by hair or jewelry. But if ear-scanners get to the point of being practical, then they could possibly work alongside fingerprinting instead of replacing them. Maybe in the future we'll see more extreme ear modification come along as a counter-measure.

Regards,

Inttelix