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The idea is to authenticate your identity with ‘brainwaves’ - electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Rather than inputting a password, a computer would display a series of words or symbols on a screen and then monitor the user’s response with an EEG headset. Each EEG signal is unique, making this a potentially unhackable access system.

Previous research has confirmed the feasibility of using EEG signals as an authentication system, but it had been carried out in laboratory settings with users being kept stationary. Hence Professor John Chuang at the University of California, Berkeley, ran a study in 2016 to measure the effect of physical exercise on EEG authentication accuracy.

Chuang found that accuracy decreased significantly immediately following exercise, but returned to original levels after 45-60 seconds. This led him to question how fatigue, hunger or stress could affect authentication.

Another factor to consider is how alcohol can affect EEG readings. Tommy Chin, a security researcher at cyber security consultancy firm Grimm, and Peter Muller, a graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, analysed people’s brainwaves before and after drinking shots of Fireball, a cinnamon-flavoured whisky. The researchers presented their results at ShmooCon in Washington DC last weekend, they found that brainwave authentication could fall to 33% in inebriated users.

According to Chin: “Brainwaves can be easily manipulated by external influences such as drugs [like] opioids, caffeine, and alcohol. This manipulation makes it a significant challenge to verify the authenticity of the user because they drank an immense amount of alcohol or caffeinated drink.”

While this could prove frustrating for some applications, there are certainly many which would benefit from preventing a drunk user from using them. Apps such as ‘Stop Drunk Texting’ are already on the market, which temporarily deletes up to six contacts from your address book for 12 hours. Perhaps more significantly, in the future EEG technology could be used for driving authentication systems, reducing the number of drink-driving related accidents.