EOM for the most part with the title.
I was thinking about it in regards to the recent question about fingerprint-locked guns and other issues with modern individual-identification techniques. The brain can certainly be detected peripherally, so it seems reasonable to use as an identification method.
But would you be able to always uniquely identify a brain pattern, or would someone need to think of a “code” that they think about real hard while touching their forehead to the metal plate?
Bumping before it goes off the first page…
The answer (with our current technology) is no.
External brain monitoring is very crude - you get to see large scale average patterns, not specific ones - somewhat like identifying people by counting fingers rather than examining their fingertips. To do more than that would require far more capable equipment (like PET/MRI equipment), and even then I doubt that the sort of resolution needed is be available.
While some progress has been made with “mind control” devices, they are still pretty crude. There is a handsfree game controller, but I get the impression that it mostly works by detecting muscle activation in the scalp (i.e. using biofeedback to gain subtle muscular control that can be tracked and utilised) in addition to brain activity monitoring.
We are a long way from any form of thought based ID system.
Si