• Iris scan biometrics ideal for Minority Report-like project

    Leon, Mexico has began implementing an iris scan biometric system from New York-based Global Rainmakers; the system, rolled out across the city, will see the eyes of anyone taking money out of an ATM, paying for items in a store, or simply catching a bus scanned by hi-tech sensors; Global Rainmaker’s CEO says the company has chosen iris scan for its project because “With iris, you have over 2,000 points— With those 2,000 points, you can create a unique 16,000 bit stream of numbers that represents every human on the planet. That provides a reference point that can connect everything you do in all aspects of life, for the first time ever”

  • Automatic heart-beat recognition authentication for iPhone users?

    To make iPhones and iPads more secure, Apple is considering implementing automatic biometric authentication technologies on the devices; the authentication procedure will lock the device and wipe all data on it in the event an unauthorized user tries to operate it; the technology may also report back to Apple in the event customers have jailbroken or unlocked the device, allowing the company to deny services to these customers

  • Worries about Afghan biometric database

    Afghanistan is filled with corruption, fraud, and malicious police officers; its commitment to the rule of law is, to be charitable, shaky; in such a circumstance, a counterinsurgency tool like the biometric database could just as easily become predatory, allowing its possessors to take out their political or ethnic rivals and reward their allies; if the WikiLeaks disclosures put Afghans in danger, imagine what iris scans and fingerprints could mean for people who do not want to pay bribes to crooked cops

  • In the trenchesU.S. military personnel increasingly using biometric technology

    Since the Department of Defense implemented biometric identification technology, military personnel have seen benefits such as quickly identifying known terrorists, collecting intelligence on insurgent activities, and identifying former detainees the military had released

  • TrendBiometrics replaces traditional means of identification

    Access cards, PINs, and passwords, designed to protect end-users, are not only ineffective against modern day threats, but often end up being used to perpetrate crime; card-based systems will only control the access of authorized pieces of plastic, but not who is in possession of the card; one of the benefits of a biometric technology is that only authorized people — not merely their credentials — are granted access to, for example, a building, a specific part of a building or even a computer or an account