LSU professor increasing smartphone privacy through user’s grip

An LSU professor is working to create and commercialize smartphone technology that would enhance privacy and security by preventing phones from displaying personal information to users who aren’t the phone’s owner. 

When you hand your phone to a friend or family member, or even leave it face up on a nearby surface, any incoming calls, emails or app notifications can be displayed. Existing iOS Guided Access and Android multi-account features that have been tested to solve this problem have been unsuccessful, but computer science professor Chen Wang and doctoral student Long Huang are building a verification method that ensures the correct user is holding a smartphone before it displays sensitive content. 

Wang and Huang’s recent paper on this topic was published at Mobicom 2021, the annual international conference on mobile computing and networking. Their technology uses artificial intelligence to sense how a person grips their phone by using sound waves and the phone’s own microphone, and won’t display personal information without verifying the correct user. 

“Because people have different hand sizes, finger lengths, holding strengths, and hand shapes, the impacts on sounds are different and can be learned and distinguished by AI,” Wang says. 

The project is one of two supported by the Louisiana Board of Regents that Chen is working on involving smartphones and users’ hands. The other uses the back of the user’s phone-gripping hand for verification at kiosks, such as those used to order food, print tickets, and self-checkout at the grocery store.  

Wang plans to commercialize these techniques in three years. Read the full story from LSU.