Iris Scan Technology: The most secure city in the world

Written by Anne, Annalist, August 20th 2010.
Translated by Ulrike Anderson. See the original article in German

The biometric company Global Rainmakers Inc. (GRI) recently announced on Wednesday that they will create the “most secure city in the world” with their iris scan technology.

In comparison, Streetview or Geo-Tagging are harmless jokes.

In cooperation with the city of Leon –one of the largest cities in Mexico, with more than one million residents– GRI will distribute eye-scanners throughout the entire city. This will help law enforcement agencies revolutionize our daily lives –not to mention marketing experts. (“Iris Scanners Create the Most Secure City in the World. Welcome, Big Brother, Fast Company“)

This project has far-reaching implications for iris biometrics, for the 1.2 million Mexicans and the world, says Hector Hoyos, CEO of Global Rainmakers. (Press release from GRI)

No shit.

The head of GRI’s development division puts it like this:

In the future, when you enter your home, unlock your car, go to the office, need access to a prescription or other medical information, you’ll do it with one, unique key: your iris.

Incredibly practical, and that’s exactly what the problem will be: many people won’t have a problem with it, with having “nothing to hide” and it being “so easy.”

The difference between this and past iris scan applications are speed and movement, according to Red Herring. In the past, an iris scan took only 30 seconds; GRI needs less than one second and can even scan moving people. Depending on the device, up to 50 people a minute.

To begin with, records for all convicted criminals will be stored in the system and then for everyone else, by Opt-In (i.e. actively and freely). Opting-Out (i.e. not letting your iris data be recorded freely) will not be a problem either, according to GRI, since, because most will let their eyes be scanned, the others will stick out even more: “We believe that everyone will participate.”

An interesting argument from Jeff Carter, the GRI head of development cited above, in an interview with Fast Company: possible problems in the areas of privacy/data protection are not anticipated because those have already been completely lifted by pre-existing data pooling by banks, but also social networks like Facebook.

We’ll see when the first greed emerges.