Scandinavian banks try to recognize user by way of typing

Scandinavian banks are going to test a method to recognize a user on a smartphone by the way he or she types. In this way, the banking app can stop a malicious person, even if they type in the security code correctly.

In a test, the app keeps track of how much pressure a user exerts on the screen, how long there is between typing numbers and how the user types. It then takes between twenty and sixty seconds for the app to realize that it is not the real user who is logging in to the app. That’s too long to stop you from logging in for the first time, but maybe short enough to hold back any transactions.

The company that makes the technology, the Swedish BehavioTec, wants to shorten that time by using input from, among other things, tracking the gyroscope of smartphones to more quickly recognize the wrong user, writes Forbes.

The Swedish company can only use the technology to detect whether the person who is typing is the correct user. A method to do the opposite, to recognize a user from thousands of profiles based on typing behaviour, does not yet exist and will take years to come.

The banks, including Danske Bank and Norsk Bank, have been using a method of the Swedish company for internet banking sites for some time.