You are your heartbeat [News]

Electrocardiograms can reveal or conceal sensitive information. Our heartbeats keep us going, but they also say a lot about who we are. Different groups of researchers are taking advantage of the unique characteristics in electrocardiogram (EKG) readings to identify and authenticate individuals for things like online security and to protect patient confidentiality in health-care settings. EKG research into both biometric and steganographic techniques deals with patient identity, but while the former uses EKG results as an identifier, the latter uses the data to hide personal information. An EKG is useful in steganography because it generates a large quantity of data in which to hide other data. For biometrics, the data describe physical characteristics of the heart, including electrical activity and positions of the chambers, which could be unique to individuals. So two different paths to protecting identity use the same data in very different ways.