Writing as Biometric: The Case of Graphology and Keystroke Dynamics

In this article, I provide a media archaeology of keystroke dynamics, a contemporary biometric that identifies users by their typing patterns. In particular, I compare keystroke dynamics to nineteenth-century graphology by way of Alphonse Bertillon, who argues that each person's handwriting is unique and thus suitable for identification purposes. Though the two biometrics analyze different kinds of writing, I argue that graphology and keystroke dynamics are in three ways permutations of each other: they both assume that writing patterns are "natural" and thus immutable; they understand writing as a discrete phenomenon and have similar technical structures; and they are classified as behavioral biometrics that are haunted by the physiological. I suggest that the social and technical similarities between the two biometrics stem from the fact that they both measure and analyze handwriting, a term that describes all kinds of writing involving the hand, including penmanship, typewriting, and keyboarding.