  Background: An advantageous property of behavioural signals ,e.g.
handwriting, in contrast to morphological ones, such as iris, fingerprint, hand
geometry, etc., is the possibility to ask a user for a very rich amount of
different tasks. Methods: This article summarises recent findings and
applications of different handwriting and drawing tasks in the field of
security and health. More specifically, it is focused on on-line handwriting
and hand-based interaction, i.e. signals that utilise a digitizing device
(specific devoted or general-purpose tablet/smartphone) during the realization
of the tasks. Such devices permit the acquisition of on-surface dynamics as
well as in-air movements in time, thus providing complex and richer information
when compared to the conventional pen and paper method. Conclusions: Although
the scientific literature reports a wide range of tasks and applications, in
this paper, we summarize only those providing competitive results (e.g. in
terms of discrimination power) and having a significant impact in the field.
