A biometric-based covert warning system using EEG

Covert Warning (CW) is a feature that allows an authorized person, when coerced, to secretly send out a warning message along with his/her personal identification. This concept was implemented in an identification system in this paper using brain-waves, i.e. Electroencephalogram (EEG), as the biometric modality. Our contribution is that we demonstrated clenching teeth producing robust signals, and proposed it as a novel CW solution to portable EEG-based biometric systems. When the volunteers were properly instructed, the CW messages were detected perfectly (i.e. 100% detection rate) in the new system. Meanwhile, the new system maintained its relatively high personal identification rate, when compared with the system without the CW feature.