Headphones that can verify your identity simply through an ear sensor are about to become a real thing – making those old-school passwords more and more irrelevant, Digital Spy reveals.

Similar to Touch IDs on mobile devices, NEC is working on headphones that use a tiny microphone to check how sounds resonate against the ear canal.

These headphones measure the reflection of short-wave audio around the ear drum to determine with 99% accuracy the identity of its wearer, the firm says.

NEC's Shigeki Yamagata said this week: "[The product] enables a natural way of conducting continuous authentication, even during movement and while performing work, simply by wearing an earphone with a built-in microphone to listen to the sounds within ears."

These unique brand of headphones could be on the market as soon as 2018.

Like Touch ID, there have been some security concerns as it becomes easier to gain access to a locked device without having to bypass a specific number code.

Last month, it was revealed that even Play-Doh could be used successfully to mimic the finger print necessary in unlocking certain devices.