Described as "frightening" in peer review, this new paper is a first step in identifying the landscape of potentially undocumented biometric privacy concerns with modern technology.
Side-channels are a simply fascinating aspect of computer security, where the implementation of a system results in a means of subverting it, rather than a flaw in the design itself. A popular example is the acoustic side-channel where, by listening to a user on a keyboard, you can determine the keys being pressed, allowing you to eavesdrop on all their input.
Other examples include the use of mechanical hard drive heads as microphones and reversed polarity LEDs as single pixel image sensors.
More and more devices are becoming ubiquitous and whilst many people are aware of the overt sensors and risks that may carry, they aren't aware of the ingenious way inconspicuous features of the technology might be used to acquire their biometric data.
This initial paper is a summary introduction to the potential side-channels proven in literature to be capable of collecitng biometric data.
It will be presented in November at the ACM SIN '20 conference.