The disclosed embodiments relate to the design of a system that identifies a person. During operation, the system receives channel state information (CSI) for a set of orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) subcarriers while the person moves in a region that includes two or more nodes that use the set of OFDM subcarriers to communicate with one another. Next, the system analyzes the CSI to obtain an analysis result. The system then determines the identity of the person based on the analysis result.
