Criminals may soon be identified at airports by how they WALK thanks to British and Spanish researchers

BRITISH and Spanish researchers are developing technology that identifies criminals by how they walk. 

The technology identifies a person’s gait, which can be used to instantly identify people as everyone walks in their own unique way.

This system could soon be in place at airports just like fingerprinting and eye-scanning technology.

The technique uses pressure pads built into the floor, and has proven to be around 99.3% accurate at identifying people.

Behavioural biometrics, like how you walk, your voice and your signature, are able to capture unique things about a person’s behaviour and movement.

Researchers from the University of Manchester and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid collected the largest footstep database ever, containing nearly 20,000 footstep signals from 127 different individuals.

The study, published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), found that monitoring these movements could be used to accurately identify people.

“Each human has approximately 24 different factors and movements when walking, resulting in every individual person having a unique, singular walking pattern,” said lead researcher Omar Costilla Reyes from Manchester’s School of School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

“Therefore monitoring these movements can be used, like a fingerprint or retinal scan, to recognise and clearly identify or verify an individual.”

Researchers have already successfully tested their data in real-world security scenarios, including airport security checkpoints.