New technology allows irises to be scanned from 40 feet away. Is this a wonder weapon against crime and terrorism or a way for governments to invade our privacy and track our movements?
Imagine if you could be identified with certainty from 40 feet away by anyone with a special camera and your iris scan in a database. Carnegie Mellon researchers at the Cylab Biometrics Center have invented a device that can do that. It should definitely have criminals feeling nervous, but maybe we should all be nervous.
First the good news. According to SRI International, a spinoff of Stanford Research Institute, iris scans are 1,000 times more accurate than fingerprint scans. We’re already using handheld iris scanners in high security situations. The new Carnegie Mellon device will work up to 40 feet away — even in a mirror — so, for example, a police officer making a traffic stop can safely identify a potentially dangerous suspect before he even exits his vehicle.
The whole system works with fewer false positives than fingerprints, and it’s effective at the same general range as facial recognition. (Facial recognition famously failed during the Boston bombings because no pictures were close enough.)
Here’s the bad news. At 40 feet away, the government could now (or soon, because this version looks like it needs some focus time and for you to sit still a bit) scan crowds of people for “irises of interest” and literally troll a city street for “the bad guys.” Even the most security-minded person probably feels a little strange about that, especially when you consider that irises can be scanned passively.
For now, this isn’t a major threat because if your iris has never been scanned, no one can identify you. The FBI has at least 104 million fingerprints in its database — 70 million of which are from criminals. It has no known iris database, though it has experimented with the idea.
What if you scanned a city street daily? You may not be able to identify whom all the irises belong to, but you could say, “The same iris, which we now call Iris 543-X, walks by here at roughly the same time every day.” The assumption, then, is that Iris 543-X belongs to someone who lives or works in the area. As thousands of irises are scanned and stored, eventually a giant database could be created to track the movements of every iris that walks in front of a camera. Eventually, you’re going to identify Iris 543-X, especially if Iris 543-X can be cross-matched to facial recognition software or other forensic databases.
Read more: Iris Scans: Security Breakthrough Or Privacy Invasion?
The Latest on: Mris Scans
via Google News
The Latest on: Iris Scans
- Dutch-Iranian Artist Sevdaliza On Walking For Iris Van Herpenon January 25, 2021 at 6:35 am
Today, the Dutch-Iranian musician Sevdaliza Alizadeh, whose fans will know her just by her first name, walked for Iris van Herpen’s Spring 2021 Couture show titled “Roots of Rebirth”. Appearing like ...
- Infamous Angelon January 22, 2021 at 2:52 pm
When Iris DeMent was a baby, her father staged a wildcat strike—meaning a strike without the backing or safety of a union—at the Emerson Electric plant in Arkansas. He stood for a year on the picket ...
- Biometric Data Security: How Safe Is Your Data And Who Owns It?on January 22, 2021 at 12:49 am
Every time we unlock our phones, log into our banking app, authenticate payments, or enter secure facilities using facial recognition or iris scanning, we use biometrics. As technology continues ...
- PayEye Partners with Advapay to Build Iris-based Payment Platformon January 21, 2021 at 12:06 pm
PayEye is turning to Advapay to create a new biometric banking platform that lets customers make purchases with only an iris recognition scan ...
- Entrepreneur wants to change how we shop using facial recognitionon January 16, 2021 at 9:04 pm
Grand Rapids-based Iris Technology wants to use its technology to replace bar codes The system would use facial recognition software and computer vision technology to replace scanning, checkout ...
- An unusual mission in Afghanistan, and the troops who suffered to carry it outon January 15, 2021 at 10:00 am
Once fired at, U.S. troops could shoot back and kill the otherwise shadowy enemy. “Stir the pot. Shake it up. If necessary, take fire,” is the way an officer describes an average day in Afghanistan in ...
- What Is Intelligent Scan on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone?on January 15, 2021 at 1:43 am
Hello guys in this guide, I am gonna tell you about What Is Intelligent Scan on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone?. So read this article, step by step so you may ...
- HC rules for recording fingerprints, iris scans during birth registrationon January 14, 2021 at 4:00 pm
By BSS, Dhaka :The High Court (HC) on Thursday issued a rule asking authorities concerned as to why it shall not pass order to record fingerprints and iris scans during birth registration.A High Court ...
- Why fingerprints, iris scans not mandatory: HCon January 14, 2021 at 12:08 pm
The High Court yesterday issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain in four weeks why they should not be directed to mandatorily record fingerprints and iris scans of all citizens ...
- Record fingerprint and scan iris during birth registration: HC ruleon January 14, 2021 at 6:51 am
The High Court issued a rule on Thursday asking authorities concerned as to why it shall not pass order to record mandatory biometric recognitions such as fingerprints and iris scans during birth ...
via Bing News