What if we could hot swap our Biometrics?

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Crowcroft, Jon, Madhavapeddy, Anil, Hicks, Chris, Mortier, Richard, Mavroudis, Vasilios
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Crowcroft, Jon
Madhavapeddy, Anil
Hicks, Chris
Mortier, Richard
Mavroudis, Vasilios
author_facet Crowcroft, Jon
Madhavapeddy, Anil
Hicks, Chris
Mortier, Richard
Mavroudis, Vasilios
contents What if you could really revoke your actual biometric identity, and install a new one, by live rewriting your biological self? We propose some novel mechanisms for hot swapping identity based in novel biotechnology. We discuss the potential positive use cases, and negative consequences if such technology was to become available and affordable. Biometrics are selected on the basis that they are supposed to be unfakeable, or at least not at reasonable cost. If they become easier to fake, it may be much cheaper to fake someone else's biometrics than it is for you to change your own biometrics if someone does copy yours. This potentially makes biometrics a bad trade-off for the user. At the time of writing, this threat is highly speculative, but we believe it is worth raising and considering the potential consequences.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_17962
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle What if we could hot swap our Biometrics?
Crowcroft, Jon
Madhavapeddy, Anil
Hicks, Chris
Mortier, Richard
Mavroudis, Vasilios
Cryptography and Security
J.3
What if you could really revoke your actual biometric identity, and install a new one, by live rewriting your biological self? We propose some novel mechanisms for hot swapping identity based in novel biotechnology. We discuss the potential positive use cases, and negative consequences if such technology was to become available and affordable. Biometrics are selected on the basis that they are supposed to be unfakeable, or at least not at reasonable cost. If they become easier to fake, it may be much cheaper to fake someone else's biometrics than it is for you to change your own biometrics if someone does copy yours. This potentially makes biometrics a bad trade-off for the user. At the time of writing, this threat is highly speculative, but we believe it is worth raising and considering the potential consequences.
title What if we could hot swap our Biometrics?
topic Cryptography and Security
J.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17962