A 17-year-old high school student from Colorado has applied biometric user authentication to firearms to develop a gun that unlocks with the user's fingerprints.
Kai Kloepfer developed the gun that works by creating a user ID and locking in the fingerprint of each user allowed to use the gun. It will only unlock with the unique fingerprint of those who have already permission to access the gun.
The gun developed by Kloepfer, who has an interest in information security, has all user data is kept right on the gun and nothing is uploaded anywhere else so it would be pretty hard to hack and this potentially makes it ideal for military use as well, Tech Crunch reported.
Kai Kloepfer won the 50,000 pounds Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge for his smart gun prototype.
Angel investor and gun reform advocate Ron Conway became the main backer of the 1 million pounds Smart Tech prize to spur gun safety solutions earlier this year. He said in January that let everyone use innovation to bring about gun safety and not rely on Washington.
According to the Smart Tech Foundation, a total of 15 innovators will receive a part of that million-dollar prize and Kloepfer is the first to get the award.
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Kloepfer came up with the idea two years ago when he needed something for his high school science project. He said that the idea came to him right as he was falling asleep, adding that it was kind of in the back of his mind because of the shooting, alluding to the Aurora, Colorado shooting.
Kloepfer's parents helped him in monetary increments to get the parts needed for each improvement, which eventually cost 3000 dollars for the whole thing to come together.
Kloepfer said that the gun, right now, is a prototype on a plastic model, and added that it is not entirely there but it works.
The 17-year-old said that every 30 minutes in the U.S. a kid dies from a gun, and added that he wants his gun to help reduce accidental deaths and injuries, and to prevent tragedies.