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Public Iris Scanning Device In the Works
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Feb 07, 2007 09:04 AM
from the road-you're-on-john-anderton dept.
from the road-you're-on-john-anderton dept.
Nonfinity writes "A public iris scanning device has been proposed in a patent application from Sarnoff Labs in New Jersey. The device is able to scan the iris of the eye without the knowledge or consent of the person being scanned. The device uses multiple cameras, captures multiple images, and then selects the best image to process."
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DAmn hollywood (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The patent system, as it's defined, says that patentable ideas must not be a logical extension of existing ideas or an idea already created by somebody else. I skimmed both links and I can't find (maybe I missed it?) any mention of a the date related to when this company claims first provable conception of the idea. Unless they built something years ago, this isn't going to hold water.
W
New product opportunity (Score:3, Funny)
Put on... (Score:4, Funny)
Priorities? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Priorities? (Score:5, Informative)
DHS has $19,632,348,000 to spend for 2007 [loc.gov] for the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) alone, so I guess they'll win.
Parent
Won't Work (Score:5, Interesting)
Those aren't the most optimistic claims (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Won't Work (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW the Live Science article suggests that: "Good quality scans result in a "false match" less than one time per one hundred billion". This estimate seems to be off by a factor of between 1 and 10 billion. Check out other articles by the same journalist: "New Study finds Sun only 491 feet from Earth".
Parent
That's.. nice.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Can we at least get ONE thread that doesn't deal with "why upgrade to Vista"?
With technology this new (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Contact lenses with fake iris images? (Score:5, Interesting)
How hard would it be to construct a contact lens with a unique, fake, computer-generated iris image (no idea how you'd do that, but "fractals" sounds like a good buzzword to insert here)? Sound like it would be a lot easier than fake fingerprints.
In a situation where you knew you were being scanned, the officials might say "I see you're wearing contacts, remove them please," but I don't quite see an airport saying "no contact lenses allowed in this airport..." particular if the idea is that the scanning is supposed to be surreptitious.
Anyone else notice the logical disconnect here? (Score:5, Insightful)
It also says "the newly proposed system is that it allows iris scans to be taken without the knowledge or participation of the subject."
What it does not say is that "the newly proposed system allows good quality scans, with a 'false match' of less than one time per one hundred billion, to be taken without the knowledge or participation of the subject." I fancy readers are supposed to infer that conclusion, which does not follow from the premises.
I'll bet the system has the usual impressive-sounding "99.9%" accuracy or something in that ballpark... like all those facial-recognition systems. Meaning a false positive rate of one in a thousand. Meaning that if one in a million airport visitors is a known terrorist with an iris scan in the database, then 999 out of every thousand people, yanked out of the concourse by polite but firm security officials, will be Lutheran grandmothers from Davenport, Iowa travelling to visit their children in St. Paul.
And the officials will be unable to give any coherent explanation, since the system is supposed to be surreptitions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.9mmsfx.com/lenses.html [9mmsfx.com]
Lots of questions remain (Score:4, Interesting)
Identifying who you scanned. sure you can scan an iris without their knowledge but unless you have the pattern stored how will you know who it is? Perhaps do it at a register and match it to the card/id used? That would be underhanded to say the least.
Storage, how much space per pattern? What is the speed of comparison to a large database? Something that is quick enough to focus ads (for the minority report fans) would require serious processing power.
I could see it in small settings, say a business who needs a less instrusive means of security. Scan all your employees and only let them in, if accompanied by those who cannot be matched then don't admit to sensitive areas. However in the general public setting, costs for equipment to store millions of scans and process them fast enough to be meaningful is still aways off.
Jab (Score:3, Funny)
Sir, you have a gift (Score:4, Funny)
btw FYOU~! now I'm gonna have that same vision every time...
Parent
What worries me most... (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, thinking about it, what *really* worries me is that people *won't* object to it. Not really.
Ah! Brave new world... etc.
I've previewed this technology back in 2005. (Score:3, Interesting)
I just can't see this system being used with cameras that randomly take pictures from varying distances and work, unless the cameras and software improved quite a bit in the past two years.
IED (Score:3, Interesting)
Which terrorist group will detonate our beloved freedom fighters with this first?
"and when I gave them cell phones, they could not get enough...
generating the database is simple, just use the network of driver's license ID cameras.
the only good news is the economics of technology mean this will be first used by high-value targets against other high-value targets. Think large-scale corporate wars vs. vengeful government agencies...with the rest of us as collateral damage.
and- which foreign state will get access to our database first?
on the other hand, think of how many more dead soldiers we will be able to recognize on the battle field! yay!
I can't see this really working... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, instead of 3 megapixels, think 12. That's still only 40 x 30 pixels. Not enough.
I'll worry when 100 megapixels becomes commonly available. (Yes I know the Navy has a 111 megapixel CCD).
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, we're all safe until someone invents robotically aimed telephoto cameras.
How hard is that?
Re:Unlawful Search and Seizure (Score:5, Insightful)
The constant monitoring, surveillance, identification, numbering and tagging of people in our society is an affront to human dignity. It's an affront not only to those being numbered and tagged, though they are the ones most offended, it's also a stain on the dignity of any state that permits it. Anyone who disagrees should ask people who have been tagged, with a barcode.
But the interesting fact is, human dignity is not a universally recognised right. We've got rights to our property, lives and liberty, but not in most cases to our dignity. This is only something that has recently been awknowladged.
The word "dignity" dows not even appear in the US constitution(enacted 1787). US citizens do not have a constitutional right to it. The Irish constitution(enacted 1937) does mention in the preamble that it is being adopted in part "...so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured". But this is only in the preamble.
Interestingly, the constitution of South Africa (enacted 1996), explicitly and unabiguously guarantees a right to dignity in Chapter 2: Section 10: I guess decades of having their dignity denied to them taught South Africans that this right doesn't really go without saying. This is one ammendment I would dearly love to see in my country's constitution. (Actually the SA constitution also guarantees the right to privacy [info.gov.za] and even the right to private communications. It's an extremely progressive document which unfortunately hasn't influenced older constitutions in the way that it should.)
Privacy in public is obviously a fallacy. But we should at least not have to suffer affronts to our dignity by being scanned and checked at every turn, or have our clothing seen through at every security checkpoint. Laws forcing Jews to wear stars or Muslims to wear crescents would probably still be constitutional in a lot of countries. A dignity ammendment would make what we know is wrong explicitly wrong. Humans aren't like animals. We have more needs than simply life, liberty and property. Dignity is one of those other needs.
Parent