Security Watch
From PDI
Paper Wrist bands have been used for some time to allow a customer to pass in and out of a Venue with minimal trouble.
A Security Watch provides the same advantage, but also provides many additional features.
The watch would be designed to collect keyed, encrypted messages. At a security point, particular messages could be collected by key. Thus one watch could maintain many different keys, with different restrictions.
The security of such messages need not be managed by the watch itself. By supporting Public/Private key encryption (mostly done outside of the watch itself), the security of such messages can be maintained by the systems that use these messages rather than by the watch itself. Keys may be "locked" by such security systems, requiring a signed key to retrieve a particular message.
Only one security feature must be implemented by the watch.
The watch needs to be able to detect when it is removed. This can be done by sensing the physical contact to the person wearing the watch. In addition, it could detect the unbuckling of the band. (With other implementations, other mechanism to detect removal from the individual can be implemented).
At any point, should the watch be disengaged from the individual, this event can be noted. Some systems would care about this, and others would not. An event log would be maintained by the watch that could be queried by the particular security system.
With this feature, the watch becomes a substitute for many biometric security applications with quite a number of advantages in terms of privacy of the user.
While we will use the term "Security Watch" in this document, the idea could be implemented in many other ways, including but not limited to a pendant, an embedded chip, an arm band, a belt, an ankle band, etc.
Commerce
The Security Watch can have a "Password Feature" allowing the user to enable some classes of keys. Thus credit card information could be maintained by the watch, but useless to a third party that might gain access to the watch. This might be enhanced by biometric features that prevent someone other than the owner to use the watch to make purchases.
The Security Watch could also maintain "points" for various systems. For example, a venue might wish to allow an individual a number of drinks, rides, or other features of that venue. As these points are used, the point count in the watch can be updated. This can be a keyed message, and thus encrypted to prevent tampering. Here the privacy advantages for the customer are obvious. The customer's actual consumption of features is private, while maintaining limits on such consumption as required by the venue. This replaces the costs and inconvenience of physical tokens that would do the same thing.
Security
When a person has had their identity verified, the Security Watch can so note this. In Airports, this allows one specialized station to do identity verifications for many points in the airport. Removal of the watch can invalidate such verification. By limiting identity verification to a single station, checks through security check points and at gates can be facilitated without trouble to the passenger. The watch can take a digital boarding pass, eliminating security holes where people today can simply alter a boarding pass and gain access to the gates at the airport. Furthermore, checks can be made at boarding time and assure that the passenger that boards the plane is really the same person that checked into the flight, something that cannot be done today.
Advantages over Biometrics
The Security Watch provides a mechanism for use of Biometrics while maintaining privacy of the individual. This is because verification of an individual's identity does not have to be tied to the release of the individual's identity to others. Biometrics can be used to assure the watch that the individual wearing the watch has not changed. In applications where the watch is used to control purchases, maintaining the individual's biometric information is important to the individual, but the individual may have issues with credit card companies, retail stores, and other corporations maintaining biometric information about the individual. With the Security Watch, such biometric information can be maintained in a device in the control of the individual rather than distributing such biometrics outside the individual's control.
