SignEEG v1.0: Multimodal Dataset with Electroencephalography and Hand-written Signature for Biometric Systems

Abstract Handwritten signatures in biometric authentication leverage unique individual characteristics for identification, offering high specificity through dynamic and static properties. However, this modality faces significant challenges from sophisticated forgery attempts, underscoring the need for enhanced security measures in common applications. To address forgery in signature-based biometric systems, integrating a forgery-resistant modality, namely, noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG), which captures unique brain activity patterns, can significantly enhance system robustness by leveraging multimodality’s strengths. By combining EEG, a physiological modality, with handwritten signatures, a behavioral modality, our approach capitalizes on the strengths of both, significantly fortifying the robustness of biometric systems through this multimodal integration. In addition, EEG’s resistance to replication offers a high-security level, making it a robust addition to user identification and verification. This study presents a new multimodal SignEEG v1.0 dataset based on EEG and hand-drawn signatures from 70 subjects. EEG signals and hand-drawn signatures have been collected with Emotiv Insight and Wacom One sensors, respectively. The multimodal data consists of three paradigms based on mental, & motor imagery, and physical execution: i) thinking of the signature’s image, (ii) drawing the signature mentally, and (iii) drawing a signature physically. Extensive experiments have been conducted to establish a baseline with machine learning classifiers. The results demonstrate that multimodality in biometric systems significantly enhances robustness, achieving high reliability even with limited sample sizes. We release the raw, pre-processed data and easy-to-follow implementation details.