<sigh> My apologies to Jonathan, the boyos in the Hills, and those watching for the Choppers. I wrote: |> Could you please identify this "bank card company" by name, card, nation, |>etc. ? The vendor, Sensar, Inc. <http://www.sensar.com> is planning to unveil the system at the Banking Administration Institute's conference in New Orleans the day after tomorrow. The company's version of the product and its expected use is a little less conspiratorial than Jonathan's post to C'punks -- but it more than suffices to force me to eat crow for my scepticism and unwarranted sarcasm.
IrisIdent is a biometric identification system that uses the unique patterns of the human iris to verify an individual's identity. Using a standard video camera, the system takes a picture of an individual's iris and compares it with a previously stored iris image. The result is a rapid validation of the individual's identity. With an empirically determined crossover error rate of less than 1 error in 131,578 transactions, iris identification is more reliable and less intrusive than fingerprinting or retinal scanning. Its security cannot be bypassed or compromised.
Pilot systems are available on a limited basis, with full production scheduled for later in 1997. In addition, Sensar is planning to launch follow-on applications for a wide range of financial applications, such as new account openings, bank wire transfers and government services. Smart Camera is a future offering from Sensar. It will combine the same technology with a stand-alone (non-PC-based) camera to verify customer identification at point-of-sale locations, business workstations, and home computers.
|> Without some explicit cite of a commercial entity -- or a reference to some |>"strip-'em-naked-with-electrons" Police R&D group like the guys at Rome AFB -- this |>report sounds like another of those ID-Implant fantasies circulated by the guys who |>are bolting steel plate to their screen doors and programming their backyard AA to |>auto-target (a) Black Helicopters (b) which are on low-level rapid approach (c) full |>Oriental, Arab, and Hispanic troopers (c) wearing Blue Helmets. The CNN news report (only a little less worrisome than Jonathan's post) is at: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9711/30/eyeball.id.ap/index.html |> Or, with further checking, could you confirm that is this just another spicy |> rumor crafted to keep the boyos in the hills rubbing garlic into their hollow-points |> with proper militia enthusiasm? (Not that I don't enjoy a good tale to wake up |> sleepy Computer Science undergrads, mind you...) |> Up the Revolution, |> _Vin Jonathan Wienke <JonWienk@ix.netcom.com> warned us all:
I just heard that a bank card company has just released a program for using photos of the iris in people's eyes as a biometric ID to replace people's PIN codes for ATM / credit cards. What I found really interesting is how they plan to implement it. As people use the ATM, they are photographed. (Every ATM has a security camera.) Over time, as people use the ATM, the security camera images are composited to produce a high-quality image of their irises, which is coded and placed in their account information. Once this is accomplished, when a card is inserted into the ATM and the security camera gets an iris image that matches the account sufficiently closely, the user can conduct transactions without entering the PIN code. People affected by this will merely receive a letter that under certain circumstances, entering the PIN is no longer necessary, but this is not a security problem.
This scenario may not be a security problem, but it certainly poses a privacy problem. Given the frequency that the average Joe Sixpack uses the ATM, it is only a matter of time before the government mandates a nationwide eyeprint ID database to catch ATM and credit card theives, money launderers, tax cheats, and other undesirables. Perhaps the eyeprint could even replace or supplement the SSN as the unique taxpayer ID key for tax and other purposes. Of course, given the fact that ATMs have had cameras from the start, this theoretical eyeprint database could already be under construction. How's that for paranoia? >:-(
Of course, there are a few ways to beat this, such as mirror sunglasses, (which would only be useful while alternative credentials to eyeprint ID are still available) and contact lenses, (which would have to be carefully oriented so that the same side of the lens was always up, or the fact that you are wearing contacts and are therefore a Suspicious Person™ would become obvious to the system) and of course intraocular implants of various types. Of course if the implant's power-on LED gives your eyes a constant Satanic red glow, you may be flagged as a Suspicious Person™ anyway.
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Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin@shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548 -- <@><@> --