They aren’t doing fingerprint and retina scans yet, but one MLS in Connecticut has a new, slightly Orwellian way to track who’s logging on to get MLS information. And although Massachusetts’ MLS companies haven’t taken up the idea, they’re watching with interest.

For the past few months, Connecticut’s Greater Fairfield County MLS has been monitoring the typing rhythms of every member who accessed its listings. You might not notice whether you type with measured keystrokes or erratic ones, for example, but the MLS’ new software does.

It creates a profile of those patterns that it matches to your password. If it notices a sudden change in typing patterns – if, say, you lend your password to someone else – it flags your profile, and the MLS there will be eyeing you more closely, possibly contacting you and asking for an explanation.

“Wow, talk about Big Brother, huh?” said Cathy Van Tornhout, a Realtor with Fairfield County Real Estate Co. The security changeup was news to her; MLS had just recently posted an announcement on its Web site, and Van Tornhout said she didn’t think many people knew about the new system yet.

Still, she acknowledged its benefits. She pays a premium for MLS information, and said she wouldn’t want someone else getting the professional benefit from it for free. Also, her password accesses clients’ personal information, such as phone numbers, and it’s her job to safeguard those details as she works to sell their homes.

“I guess it’s a good thing from our standpoint, because I want to be able to Â… protect my business,” she said.

Debra Taylor Blair, owner of Boston-based MLS company LINK, said she’d never heard of this type of software, but she is intrigued – LINK has had its own troubles with finding a hassle-free security system, she said.

“The new system sounds fantastic, because it doesn’t disrupt the user.”

The software comes from a Washington state company called AdmitOne Security, which typically serves companies such as credit unions, said Fairfield County MLS CEO Don Hull. The MLS in Fairfield is the first real estate company to try it out, but MLS agencies in California, Chicago and Detroit are considering using the technology.

MLS in Fairfield County started toying with the idea about 18 months ago, looking for a better security answer than the standard user-name/password combo. The current system requires members to use a fob that, with the push of a button, generates a special passcode that MLS members must type in every time they want to log on. But those fobs aren’t cheap, Hull said, and can be easily lost or stolen.

So they looked for something new, and “ultimately came across this thing which looked like witchcraft,” Hull said.

But after some tests, he liked what he saw and decided to implement the software.

For now, they’re just monitoring people’s usage. But eventually, Hull said, MLS will use the software to automatically block users who don’t type the way they usually do. The user will have to re-enter the password, much the same as when you misspell a letter with a typical password security system.

Hull figures that users will get mistakenly rejected about once for every five log-ins, but that it’s an acceptable amount of inconvenience. The company will work out details for exceptions to the rule, such as MLS members with conditions that make their hands unsteady, such as Parkinson’s Disease.

And of the MLS-using real estate agents who know about the new system, Hull says the response has been positive – most under-stand the need for it.

The company is using a “measured” implementation of the new system, Hull said: “For the next foreseeable few months, it’ll just sitting there in the background, kind of watching what people are doing.”