Using facial skin micromovements to identify a user

A method for identifying individuals using facial skin micromovements, the method comprising:

• operating a wearable light source configured to project light towards a facial region a head of an individual;
• operating at least one detector configured to receive light reflections from the facial region and to output associated reflection signals;
• analyzing the reflection signals to determine specific facial skin micromovements of the individual, the specific facial skin micromovements resulting from vocalization or prevocalization of a sequence of phonemes by the individual;
• accessing memory correlating a plurality of reference facial skin micromovements with the individual, wherein the plurality of reference facial skin micromovements is associated with differing phonemes previously vocalized or previously prevocalized by the individual;
• searching for match between the determined specific facial skin micromovements and at least one of the plurality of reference facial skin micromovements in the memory;
• if a match is identified, initiate a first action;
• and
• if a match is not identified, initiate a second action different from the first action.

A non-transitory computer readable medium containing instructions that when executed by at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform operations for identifying individuals using facial skin micromovements, the operations comprising:

• operating a wearable light source configured to project light towards a facial region a head of an individual;
• operating at least one detector configured to receive light reflections from the facial region and to output associated reflection signals;
• analyzing the reflection signals to determine specific facial skin micromovements of the individual, the specific facial skin micromovements resulting from vocalization or prevocalization of a sequence of phonemes by the individual;
• accessing memory correlating a plurality of reference facial skin micromovements with the individual, wherein the plurality of reference facial skin micromovements is associated with differing phonemes previously vocalized or previously prevocalized by the individual;
• searching for match between the determined specific facial skin micromovements and at least one of the plurality of reference facial skin micromovements in the memory;
• if a match is identified, initiate a first action;
• and
• if a match is not identified, initiate a second action different from the first action.