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Germany Begins Iris Scans at Frankfurt Airport
securitas writes "Deutsche Welle reports that at Germany's Frankfurt airport biometric iris scans of airline passengers have begun. The German government says that the six-month pilot project is part of Europe's 18-country Automated and Biometrics-based Border Checks initiative to improve 'border control routines' and domestic security, with a full-scale system to follow. The system uses an iris scan embedded in a passenger's machine-readable passport, which is compared to the passenger's iris with an onsite scan. Travelers must 'sign a data security document' and agree to be checked by border guards. The article also references the capability of an iris scan to determine drug and alcohol consumption. The European Parliament is considering replacing all of its traditional passports with a new European biometric passport by 2005. The IRISPASS system (press release) was built by Byometric systems, Iridian and Oki Electric Industry. More coverage at CNet/ZDNet, AP/USA Today and mirrors at AJC, and CNN."
greasy, dirty or peeling skin on the finger can easily distort fingerprint-recognition, a factor that plays no role in the case of iris-recognition.
So, does this mean that folks with melanomas of the iris, cataracts, macular degeneration (which is common and can manifest initially through pigment changes in the iris), etc... will have to go through a bigger hassle than the other passengers when traveling?
Also, since the iris does change throughout life, I would guess that one would have to renew their iris scan on their passport from time to time.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I fear a bleak future run along the lines of Minority Report's eye scanning. Honestly, this technology is scary.
...who is this "Iris?" Was she clothed when she was scanned and, most importantly is she seeing anyone?
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
after scan images are published in seedy newspaper.
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Honestly, this technology is scary.
I think that has probably been said by someone about pretty much every technology we use today. It isn't the technology that's scary, it's what people might do with it. Almost every new technology has the potential for good, as well as evil.
You probably shouldn't click this.
*Gets to work on iris creation and replacement machine* *Puts away fake (novel) ID machine*
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
Jan 1, 2006: "The Berlin Who's Who lists a lot of people nicknamed Cyclops"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
At least they aren't Frankfurt scanning.
My dad always thought that the best security meassure for these iris scans would be some sort of icepick-like tip that pokes you hard in the eye if the scan fails.
Oh, it's all for the security of the United States. there is the pressure from. The next time a terrorist group attacks Manhattan, we will know a little bit more about these guys, their biometrical data. To look someone in the eyes is very important for psychologial reasons. Eyes don't lie :-)
My tin foil contact lenses will put a stop to that nonsense.
...I blame Ashcroft.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Excuse me, just because something the german's do is something you don't agree with you call them Nazi's? EXCUSE ME?
Right now our own [US] government is a lot more like the Dritten Reich than the current german government.
As far as many europeans I know this doesn't bother them, because it's not more invasive than many other things that happen over there.
Be careful about throwing around the "Nazi" term - it may offend some of us around for many reasons, especially when it's inappropraitely and racistly used like you just did.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
So you get a passport made with a fake iris scan, just like you would get one with a fake photo.
Or would it cryptographically check with a central office to make sure the passport iris scan is the same one you got when you applied for the passport? Whole other can of worms...
Wah!
passanger get's mugged by terrorist who steals his ticket ..... and now his eyes to present to the machine ....
I know people are going to trash this idea as a Privacy Issue, but keep in mind, there *are* a lot of bad people out there. But also, at this point in the evolution of technology, talking about "privacy" is almost silly, TRW and Nexus/Lexus already know more about you than you do.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What about using colored contact lenses to change identities. The only way to make brown eyes look blue is with a fake iris. A less suspicious person gets a passport wearing a pair of these and then gives that pair of contacts to another less-reputable person. I wonder if German authorities would even look twice at a nice artificially blond, artificially blue-eyed disguised terrorist.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol introduced iris scanning in 2002
o l.security/
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/03/27/schiph
Germans collecting bilogical data about everyone who comes through their borders...what could go wrong?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
I would think the scan will have to be renewed on a fairly regular basis.
Still, this leaves me wondering. We hear a lot of negative stuff about universal ID cards of one stripe or another (I won't go so far as to call it FUD, it may be quite reasonable). Most of the cautions expressed seem to revolve around duplication / forgery by criminals etc.
Anyone have any info on how hard it would be to fool an iris (or retina) scanner? Might be a good substitute for universal IDs. I mean, the ostensible principles of univeral IDs aren't all bad...
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
Furthermore, the iris doesn't just betray the identity of the passenger, but can also tell much about his or her possible drug and alcohol consumption.
Cuff him, the computer says he might be high!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is rather invasive and doesn't bode well for privacy. Not to mention the issues of being able to get the same scan every time (eye damage, anyone?). On the other hand, it does make an attempt to solve the authentication problem -- how do you know that the person holding the passport is the person the password was issued to? Take a sample of data points from the scan at the time of application which are guaranteed to be reproducible (the signature) and sign it against a government-held private key. Barring changes in the eye structure, this should be easily reproducible.
Still, all these methods do nothing to prevent terrorism. They only validate that the person shoving their eye into the reader, terrorist or innocent, matches with the passport. Done properly, it should be incredibly difficult to forge a passport without having someone high up on the inside with access to the private encryption key. But it won't stop terrorists.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
What about the blind? People who use colored or distorted contacts (IE shaded contacts, contacts with designs on them), or other abnormalities of the eye. There might be a lot of ways people could potentially bypass a system like that.
This, of course, is why RMS does not believe in fingerprint scans...
Its only a matter of time before walking out your door requires a biometric scan. It is preposterous that we as free people of the world allow ourselves to be subjected to this for the sake of "security". This is like any other "protective" measure. It screws over the decent people of the earth and does nothing to the criminals. GUN LAWS DONT KEEP GUNS OUT OF CRIMINAL HANDS! All the terrorists and bad guys are gonna do now is sneak into countries without flying to them directly. Or the terrorists will recruit people inside of countries they dont like. You dont stop bad guys by telling them to stop. You MAKE the BAD GUYS stop. Leave joe-shmoe's rights alone.
All transactions are electronic. Think "Credits" in "Total Recall".
All movement is scanned. Think eye scanning in "Minority Report".
All new information is copyrighted, and DRM free info is exchanged amongs the population like drugs are today. Think "Matrix" where Neo gets his little disks for cash, before he goes and follows the White Rabbit.
All information is put together in a database, where the Government can search it at will, without a warrent. Think "198..." scratch that. Think "2004", TIA project, Echelon, Patriot Act I, Patriot Act II, Patriot Act III (comming soon to a Democracy near you) et. al.
FUN!
...start using operatives who have no eyes. And then what will we do?
With each new device or method used in airports to catch or filter out terrorists, the barrier to commit terrorist acts is raised higher. What do you think will happen when it becomes virtually impossible to do anything even remotely odd near or inside airports and airplanes? well I'll tell you : terrorists will fall back on easier targets, chiefly trains. And then, once a train has been derailled, every government will start applying airport police-state methods to railway stations and trains, and so on ...
It's an endless battle. If countries carries on trying to defend themselves like they do now (mostly in the US, but also in other countries), they'll all turn into huge menacing police states. and terrorists will have won. If those countries don't defend themselves, terrorists will blow things up forever and will have won again.
What the world really needs is a true force of education in dangerous countries, a project that spans over 2 or 3 generations. The US is in Afghanistan and Iraq, why don't they set up schools to teach the current generation of kids there not to hate, and why terrorism is bad? They're not doing jack squat, and neither are any other countries concerned by terrorist threats. Instead of starting to implement that long-term, but only real solution to the terrorist problem, they barricade themselves and make life miserable for their own populations.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Oh, it's all for the security of the United States.
Ah! I was wondering why those Germans in Germany were scanning passengers in a German airport as part of a European initiative. Turns out it's to secure the United States!
Tell me, are European tinfoil hats more stylish than the American variety?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
I actually worked with Iridian back when they were called "Iriscan" a few years ago. The technology was pretty cool; unlike fingerprint or voiceprints, which can only verify someone's identity after they tell you (via a username, prox card, etc) who they are, an iris scan can actually identify a user based off of their iris pattern.
A typical fingerprint has about 10 points that can be uniquely identified, and on a thumbprint scanner you're lucky to get 5 or 6 of them reliably. The iris has roughly 26 unique points that can be picked up every time. Back when I was working with Iridian's stuff they used a low light video camera to basically take a picture of your eye...no funky lasers or anything like that. Additionally, and perhaps morbidly so, they had built technology to help identify if the eye was live or not, so not only could you not just hold up a picture of an eye, but you couldn't take someone else's eye (a la Demolition Man, I believe) and hold it up to the scanner.
Additionally, the iris pattern (and thumbprint or voiceprint in other applications) is never held as an actual pattern; it's just a hash based off of what comes off the scanner, so privacy was not much of a concern.
It's "no one," not "noone." Who the hell is noone anyway?
this poor kid wasn't born in Germany.
What?
Or would it cryptographically check with a central office
you just have to do two things:
#1 you check the digital signature of the actual data payload on the passport (which probably contains other things besides the iris scan, things like your name, address, blah blah blah)
#2 you do status checking on the certificate that was used to sign said data (just in case it was compromised, hey, it could happen).
#1 will already give you a pretty high level of confidence that things haven't been mucked around with (no way you'd be able to forge a digital signature, and one assumes that the certs used for this signing will be well guarded), #2 can be done in a variety of different ways (retrieving CRLs from the CA at specified time intervals all the way to realtime status checking via OCSP) depending on your level of paranoia.
-- the cake is a lie
Also, Keratoconus is a disease that causes the cornea to deform. This would cause scans of your iris to change. Also, people with this often have cornea transplants. The stitches (which are sometimes left in "forever") are right over the iris.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
. . .an iris scan can actually identify a user based off of their iris pattern.
. . . privacy was not much of a concern.
You are using a different definition of privacy than one many people are concerned about.
KFG
What good is comparing an iris scan to information on the passport? It should be compared against a central database. At some point the system used to place the information on the passport will be cracked - either by hacking or theft. Criminals or terrorists with the most money (Al Qaeda have had access to millions of $$ in the past) will be able to effectively bypass the system whilst the honest individual citizens are kept under the thumb by big brother.
I work for a private security company (can't give you the name) and we are looking into biometrics too.
They seem to work quite well. There is one "drawback" though: you can only use them to identify people who are already in your database. So it can only be used to authorize personel and not to identify visitors for example. This will remain like this until governements start keeping databases of biometric records.
Ofcourse this isn't very evident because the TTEI-resolution of 2001 specifically forbids practices like this on grounds of techfear I suppose.
Thought process:
- Many official documents require you to provide your fingerprint information. In fact, some gov't agencies even collect this information.
- Assume you would like to use your fingerprints for personal authentication for your own use (accessing computer system, data, etc... yes, I know it's a crappy tech for various reasons, but humor me)
- If someone can access your collected fingerprint data from the agency, he/she could (potentially) use this data to bypass your personal authentication.
Now, in that line of thought, replace "fingerprint" with "iris" and "personal authentication" with "commercial authentication".
I think you see where I'm going with this...
- dforce
SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE A_WINNER = "YUO";
sounds like a good reason to not fly.
I just saw minority report a few weeks ago. I very quickly thought to myself "when some government tries this mandatory retina scanning shit, humanity is done"
thanks EU.
I'm wondering when some government is going to require every citizen to wear a mark. maybe the same government will link the mark to being able to participate in monetary transactions.
I'll be moving to a desert, thanks.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I'd think you could easily program around that, ditto for contact lenses. Temperature, presence of pulse, etc. - would be hard to fake, I think. Especially with retinal scans.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
I've always had a geeky dreamproject of supplementing my traditional lock and key entry to my house with biometric security devices. The idea being that in the event of a systems failure, instead of being locked out of the house I could fall back to the old lock-n-key method.
My idea would be to use either iris-scanning, breath analyzation or some combination of the two (ideally a choice so that if one were to fail, say the iris, the breath analyzer would let you in). Much more efficient than fumbling around for keys in the dark! And a blessing to the drunken Irishman I can sometimes be (not all, but SOME stereotypes certainly hold more than a little water...and occasionally some whiskey too!) I digress.
But the last time I checked, (this was a few years ago) such devices were not so readily available. And when you could find them they were exorbitantly expensive. Insult to injury drivers were only available for NT. Not that it would be that terrible to set up an NT box for this purpose, but Linux of course would be much preferable.
So my question is, has this situation changed? Has the price of this technology become more available and affordable? Still prohibitively expensive? Any sourceforgian opensource driver alternative for the devices that are?
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Hmm... sounds like a job for strong encryption. I was thinking more of a database, though... and the security issues there are frightening. Hell, just the *stupidity* issues there are frightening!
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
In France and Belgium, for example, you can walk into a police station and declare you have lost your passports (the prevalence of muggers and pickpockets makes it an easily believable story). You have to provide a birth certificate. What is it? An ordinary piece of paper, incredibly easy to counterfeit. Once your ID has been "established" by this "proof", the authorities will issue a new set of ID documents: forgery-proof ID and biometric passport. With your supplied name and photo on it.
If at least, they keep a database of iris scans, forgers would be able to do it only once. The article doesn't say anything about such a database.
So this is a nice strong link in the othewise very weak security chain in Europe.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Not to turn this into a Europe Vs. United States thread but...
How many times in the last year have I heard European leaders referring to our current President and his government as "Nazi's"?
As far as the United States government turning into a Nazi regime I think you are eating a diet containing too much Liberal and European sentiment.
I suggest you cut your intake back to two anti-us rants a day and get out in the sun more. Oh, and avoid political debates at all costs.
Does having an "arresting station" in one's own dwelling-place not sound a bit more chilling that eye-scanning?
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
I did not here a beep about this here in Germany, I guess the plan is to introuce the system through the backdoor.
Well, maybe, but than they wouldn't make a press release, right?
Besides the fact you show you're a flaming conversative you also show you are unable to draw parallels between laws and events. I suggesting you read up on the history of the Nazi Regime in the prewar years in germany and then compare and contrast many of the laws and some of the events against the occurances in the US in the last three years. BTW: A liberal must be someone who A) supports the constitution and the rights of all people B) disagrees with bush
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
wake me when they come for me.
-pyrrho
The whole biometrics discussion only became more
than a stupid idea after the 9th September. I
guess everyone knows by now that the
terrorists lived and studied in Germany before
thay attacked the world trade center (or some
of them, i forgot). But the point is, that
they haven't shown any suspicious behaviour
before their attack.
So most sane people have argued that the
problem wasn't identifying the terrorists, for
which this would be a possible solution. The
problem is to know who is a terrorist,
criminal etc while their actions still lie in
the future. Obviuosly this problem is not
solved at all.
The government is simply using this as a placebo
to soothe the fear of terrorism in the
gullible general public and as a neat side
effect they increase their control over people. imho of course
the most sexp i get is my paren-mode.
JFK, terminal 4 ( site of Singapore, Kuwait, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel national airlines, among others ) had been displaying an iris scanning machine for the past year or so. It is about 12 feet high and looks sexy.
Gut reaction:
1) Oh, my god, this is awful!
2) Probably won't work
Of course, there might be a not so subtle message being sent here. Why terminal 4?
As it seems, most of you might have missed the fact, that the system is optional. You don't have to use it, you don't have to own a special passport if you don't want to use it.
It's setup as a convenience for frequent travellers. Its opt-in, if you would like to call it that way.
The question "And what good does the the ability to quickly identify massive ammounts of people at borders produce?" is loaded. "The ability to quickly identify massive amounts of people at the borders" is itself a description of one use of the technology, not of the technology itself.
The basic technology is simply a means of scanning an iris to uniquely identify an iris. This could be used to identify animals in wildlife observations, it could be used by a private company as an additional security device ("My eye is my passport"--wait...), it could be used at ATMs to verify the identity of the person using the card...
So yes, there are potential uses for this technology that are arguably good.
You probably shouldn't click this.
here, here!
You won't find a more vibrant, active, and a fair democracy any where else. America should start getting used to the fact that democracy has evolved a bit in two hundred years.
I really thought we were living in the year 2004 now, but apparently, it's 1984 ...
the EU already has the one-currency thing going. :)
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Okay... so they begin doing iris scans. That's great.
Now Mr. John Q. Terrorist gets on the plane and hijacks it, sending 150 people crashing to their death in the sea. HE'S FRIGGIN' DEAD. Who cares what his biometrics are?
Two months later, another terrorist boards a plane and hijacks it. Oh, GOOD. They got his iris scan! The world will be safe!!!
I'm sorry, but I don't know of many suicide terrorists that strike twice.
Oh, and if you want to comment on how this isn't about terrorism and is more about catching known criminals, etc.... again... what does it matter? Their iris scans aren't on file anywhere else... and if they're really a criminal considering travelling overseas or even internationally, I *think* they would have the sense enough to utilize false documents.
There are other ways of travelling.
I fail to see what this will solve or even help.
And to all those Germany-bashing guys here: the law that made this possible was actually brought to us because the US administration wanted tighter controls and criticised European passports; so please, for once, get informed before reverting to boring prejudices.
Sebastian
For the humor impaired: http://www.stlukeseye.com/Conditions/Conjunctiviti s.asp
"I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense - I deserve it." Be's Jean-Louis Gass
Here comes Pink Eye, can't wait.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
I'm at the Frankfurt (FRA) airport at least four times a year. This will make the long lines even more fun.
David
The German authorities will not be able to enforce this system for a long time, as it is impossible to force all other countries to provide such data.
Besides, did you ever notice that Europeans have to provide biometric information when applying for a US visa?
Sebastian
So we get a template of those twenty-some points of your iris and now have to store that somewhere. If that template is compromised you're screwed for the rest of your life. You can't change them like you can a password. How can we ensure that the template, whether iris or fingerprint or whatever, can't be compromised? Until that gets answered it seems there is a fatal flaw in any bio-x id technology.
This technology will never be applicable for identification from a database because of the base rate fallacy: i.e.
assuming that if a person is corretly identified 99.999% of the time. if there are 500M (roughly all of europe) people in the database, then the mistake rate would be approximately 500 ppl. So for every individual going through, there are 500 possible individuals which he could be. This is not even the full application of the base rate fallacy, there is not enough research published on iris recognition for it to be fully analized (this is a *very* rough estimate).
*this does make alot of sense for a passport comparator, b/c no one could then steal a passport and use it, unless they want to take the risk of prison on a single hand of poker: with only a royal flush being the way to win (roughly equivalent odds as getting through with some else's passport).
Which means that you can only be tracked IF:
The passport has a chip in it with your personal information upon it, and that information (after a verification of your iris) is sent to a data mining facility. No other means of tracking is possible.
-big brother is not watching you, he keeping your attention every moment of every day; making sure that you never think about anything except what he tells you to think. Making sure that you never feel anything that he doesnt tell you to feel.
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
IMHO it's doubtful if this will change anything in the effective security level. - A number of convicted terrorists were native citizens of non-listed non-suspicious countries or naturalized there, with legal passports.
An even bigger number were from a suspicious country with legal papers, which were certified by U.S. officials, including visa and so on.
To me it seems that the main problem of people with invalid or forged papers is that they are just economic refugees, having not even enough money for proper papers.
Too few money does not seem to be the primary problem of today's terrorists. At least not of those who I heard of.
Never, the thing you seem to remember is a statement to the effect that the tactics Bush is using are eerie similar to the tactics Hitler was using.
And if you think that statement is not true you might want to get a good history book some time.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
This is tangential at best. 9 years ago, I was on a college trip to Moscow that included a several-hour layover in Frankfurt. To get to the food areas, we had to go through customs. Absolutely starved and desperate to try a McDonald's that sold beer, several of us went through Customs together.
As the agent patted me down, which he did to everyone, he actually grabbed my crotch. Apparently this was a standard part of the pat-down, but it was news to me. Shocked, I blurted out the first word of German which came to mind: "Danke!" I turned eight shades of purple and we all laughed, then they let me through.
Honestly, I don't see the German-bashing here. Metric arseloads of USA-bashing, but not German-bashing.
;)
Vielleicht wissen die ja alle, dass Deutschland ein Wundertolles Land is', net?
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Black Hat gets on plane with faked ID and iris scan; knows the airport screener in Frankfurt is better then the one he left behind in Cyprus. Quick trip to the WC past the harried and underpaid seward, a quickly passed 500 Euro and.... Graft corruption, bribery greed these are the same as they always have been. All these security checks do is placate the cattle. The wolves still feast on the fringes of the herd and occasionally attack the middle. Menwhile, the sheepherd gently leads the rest of us towards the slaughterhouse...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
You want to treat me like a criminal then why should I spend my money in your country?
> You are using a different definition of privacy than one many people are
> concerned about.
No, most sane, non tin-foil-hat-wearing peoples main fear of this sort of technology, if they give a shit at all, is that someone else will pretend to be them. And there's more chance of this if the Bad Guys have access to the underlying iris information, rather than just a hash.
Germany has an airport made out of hotdogs?
I have this thing, more than a thing, really; more of a screaming, frothing refusal to submit to fingerprinting, retinal scanning, DNA sampling, gait analysis, random drug testing, ID picture taking... I don't think I should have to unless I am arrested and accused of a crime (and I better see a judge and a lawyer, too -- no torture pit in Syria, please).
I understand that pasports are necessary, and I would submit to good old picture ID, of course. Seems to have worked for a very long time. I do detest having to state various things about my private life (are you married? divorced? where's your wife? A: why the hell is that your business?).
The 40 or so hijackers that crashed the jets were here on perfectly valid ID's. No biometric scanning would have made a difference.
So, why are we submitting to this crap? And do you think that the powerful in the U.S. will be ducking their heads into retinal readers when they travel? Do you think the Saudi royals will?
Do you think they will stop at retinas? DNA will follow. Then RFID tags to track us. All in the name of Safety. Although none of these things will stop criminals from blowing something up. They merely have to keep their noses clean until they attack.
Now, I know that I am unemployable in corporate America now and forever, for they operate in some realm other than constitutional democracy. I don't grant them the right to make me pee on command, or track my private life (they can fire you for going to a union organizing meeting on your own time -- ruling was upheld).
But this -- I'm not going to guess, I am going to state that very soon I am locked out of Europe. And if the U.S. follows the EU's lead, I won't be able to leave the United States because I would refuse to have my biometric data taken for a passport?
I'm never able to travel out of the U.S. unless I submit. They won't let me leave.
I'm in prison. We all are.
especially considering the treatment the Roma's regularly receive in Europe, not just Germany either, denied citizenship anywhere, their childeren deneied schooling and the same treatment any other kids born in the country to non-citizens. As for the US we are currently so close to treating those of Arab descent as criminals just as we did such a DIS-SERVICE to the Japanease in WW2....We are not in any position to start throwing many stones, with non-citizens sitting in internment camps in Guantanamo Bay, never charged, denied any of the BASIC human rights we so LOUDLY TOUT...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If you read closely, 12 months is typical, but research suggests it takes much longer.
I had blue eyes up until my late teens, when the sent first grey, and eventally settled into green. This appears to be genetic, other family members have had similar changes, though most didn't wait quite as long.
Instead of trying to fool the scanner, fool the database. Doesn't matter how good their scanner is, if they match my iris to John Doe of Iowa, and my id matches. The people you get a fake id from can do this. (that is those that get you a fake id where data is entered into the system, a fake id that isn't in the system won't have this)
the U.S. is far less likely to repeat slavery (or Native American genocide), than Germany is to oppress its Turkish or other minorities
I think entirely the opposite is true - due precisely to their country's history, the German people are far less likely to oppress or otherwhise mistreat ethnic minorities than other countries (i.e. the US).
Germans suffer greatly under an (often subconscious) apprehension over how they appear to be treating other cultures. Germany is much more likely than most countries to be scrutinised for it's actions concerning minorities, for as soon it makes a controvesial move there will instantly be cries about how it is reverting to form. Austria elects a right-wing government and no-one blinks an eye, Germany has the world's eye upon them and thus adopts a far less forceful approach in it's international relations.
To be frank, Germans have a much more tolerant and open-minded view towards foreigners than most Americans - and I've never heard anyone refer to the Gastarbeiter as "Germany's Niggers". The comparison is apt only in the sense that both groups are one of largest minorities in their respective countries - at least virtually all african-americans speak English. This is getting off topic, but the problem with the Turkish peoples in Germany lies in equal parts with them and us. Some have a tendency to form enclaves and refuse to assimilate or even learn German. When you walk down streets where every shop sign is both in German and Turkish (except for the pub/social club, which is just in Turkish), all the kids on the street are Turks, and nary a word of German is spoken between the teenagers on street corners, you wonder whether the Regierung (Government) might not have a case for denying citizenships to those who aren't making an effort to become part of the German community.
Unlike in 1935, the German government of today (for all their flaws) makes plenty of effort to try and integrate the immigrants currently living here into mainstream society. Stronger border controls just mean they can focus on the problem at hand, rather than having a growing pool of people who have to be adressed.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
Before I go into my shtick, a couple of puns and punlike semantic constructions. My apologies, some of them are horrible.
- Won't this be a problem for eyedentical twins?
- Your passport Mister Willard. "Eye don't think so!"
- Rods? Cones? Where the hell is my luggage?
- Sir, can you remove any loose change from your eyelids...
- Sorry maam, your scan keeps coming up "Grape Juice $2.95."
And an airline joke or two off the cuff...
1. Thank you for flying Air Lingus. Oh no, THANK YOU!
2. Will you be smoking or non-smoking Herr Schrodinger?
3.
Okay, now to the schtick.
Yes, isn't it wonderful. At last something macabre and frighteningly science-fictioney is crossing over into our lives, citizens. At last we can unite in glory, as one. Travel is a very cautious affair, citizens. I ask you, should we not take every possible precaution?
So you see.
There is no deriding this measure, my fellows.
It follows then, that we should adopt a similar solidarity in our daily lives. We are one body. We are one, whole, together.
The 21st century is here! Let's do the 21st Century Cheer!
DNA!
DNA!
Nanobots! Nanobots!
DNA!
Siss Boom Bah!
Gat Ta Ca!
Iris scans! Cyberspace!
Siss Boom Bah!
Human clones!
Reality shows!
Dick Clarke's corpse is still alive!
Human clones!
Martian brine!
GMO wine!
The spice must flow! We rule the soul!
We're free, cool, and fine!
Terror War!
What's it for?
Raining death from outer space!
Terror War!
Woohoo! We love you Twenty First Century!! Big kiss! Mmmwwwahh!
-- thinkyhead software and media
Additionally, and perhaps morbidly so, they had built technology to help identify if the eye was live or not, so not only could you not just hold up a picture of an eye, but you couldn't take someone else's eye
Which I guess is as good of a thought as any, but it seems to me that there will still be people who will try this once or twice.
Regrettably, in order to prevent eye theft, this requires the rather absurd notice at any iris scanning station saying:
"Original, attached eyes only."
or
"This scanner detects stolen eyes."
or
"Carcass eyes automatically rejected."
et cetera.
I hope you do understand that it is the US that is pushing for this. Basically, the US is saying that the Europeans need to create biometric passports if they want to be able to continue to travel to the US under the visa waiver program.
What is particularly bad about this is that US citizens will apparently not be subjected to biometric identification, at least not yet. It actually seems rather doubtful that something like that is palatable domestically, although in the hysteria after 9/11, I suppose you never know.
What is also bad about it is that biometrics give people a false sense of security: they don't actually increase security very much (since they can be forged), but they tend to decrease human security checks--immigration officials trying to judge whether someone is behaving in odd ways, etc.
I hope that the Europeans are going to refuse and say "OK, kill your tourism market if you like"--the US has much more to lose from making it harder for Europeans to travel to the US than the other way around. But, politically, that doesn't look likely.
The 9/11 terrorists used their own IDs and their own passports. An eye-scan would've been utterly useless here.
Biometric scans may have some value in proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the association pair (physical person, ID papers) is legitimate, but they can't (yet?) read minds of first-time would-be terrorists, which do not yet have any criminal records.
And this is precisely the problem here. Most terrorist attacks are not performed by professionals, but by people who didn't appear on the radar before. Professionals may be planning the attacks, but they will still hide beyond our reach. They are unlikely to cross a heavily guarded border when they can send a lot of legitimate people to do the dirty work for them.
And now, to ask again: is this really necessary? If we persist on this path, newly born babies will soon get a bluetooth chip implant, just like cows in a herd. Wouldn't that be great? The complete human population earmarked and always trackable on a global scale. Ready for... what? Slaughtering?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Sebastian
This type of voluntary system was already implemented at Schiphol (The Netherlands) in 2001.
sig(h)
LOL. If any nation holds a patent on "ignore history, repeat its errors" that would be the U.S. .. But -- as you were speaking of slavery --
There has obviously been progess from the classical way of slave-holding (imagine the outrageous cost of importing, keeping and feeding them). Nowadays, there is no need to spend any money on would-be slaves. Just have their local chieftains pass laws "harmonizing the market", then send your lawyers to claim the rewards of their labor for your coffers.
Todays system is called "Intellectual Property" and we are called "consumers". But in the end it still means "we own you".
Of course, it was being sold a voluntary method of fast-tracking through the regular security check process. But it's only a matter of time. .
The insanity isn't coming. It's here. It's just getting worse, is all.
-FL
This is "for your identification, and your security" then after the people approve it for 'their safety' " oh by the way, it can also determine drug usage.."
Orwell had no clue how bad its gonna get... he only scratched the surface.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah, they should have gone to the US. Where they wouldn't even have been allowed to enter.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
When I tried the iris recognition system at the millenium dome (i.e. in 2000) and got scanned in, when I went to the other machine a couple of metres away it didn't recognise me?
March 27, 2002
2 7/schipho l.security/
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Amsterdam's Schiphol airport is claiming success in a biometric security system that scans eyes and allows passengers to bypass traditional passport control.
Schiphol is one of several major European airports embracing new technology to win back passenger confidence amid security fears following September 11.
London's Heathrow is holding similar trials while some U.S. airports, including New York's JFK and Washington's Dulles, are also considering the scheme.
Read the whole article
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/03/
I must say that it makes me feel like a second class citizen to stand in line waiting to have my passport checked at schiphol and seeing people in expensive suits zooming trough the biometric check
There are a variety of techniques. One is to "merge" the last successful match with the template, creating a new template that is an average of the two. Over time the eye can change and the template will track those changes.
Another is to simply generate a new template from each successful match. Store the most recent n templates. When matching consider a match to be successful if it matches m out of n templates where m is some number less than n.
Of course if the iris were to change rapidly or even if it changed slowly and you didn't travel for an extended period then these techniques wouldn't be helpful. But they would work well for those who travel occasionally (or more frequently) even with moderate changes in the biometric over time.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I went throgh most of the articles reffering to the Frankfurt Airport installation of Irisrecognition. Some of the comments are not even worth a response(especially the Nazi- ones !) but some show a lack of knowledge and quite some disturbance. As we provided the Iris-Part to the Frankfurt installation, I would like to get back to facts. 1) Does the Iris change ? Yes, the pigmentation of the Iris changes. Other than the pigmentation, the Iris is not changing naturally. Of course we know about several deseases, which might affect the Iris. Changes of the Iris color (pigmentation) does not have an impact on Irisercognition, as the Iriscameras take a black/ white picture of the eye ! We do NOT take a coloured photograph, NOR do we use bright light or laser beams ! The photograph is taken from a distance of 7 to 60 cm. 2) The Frankfurt Installation: The use of the automated border crossing system happens voluntarily. It is actually a Fast Track system for simplified passenger travel. The IrisCode is generated at an enrollment center, wherepassengers are enrolled on the basis of their passport. The users have to agree to their participation. If they whant to be deleted from the database they just have to tell it to the authorities. No code is stored on a card (like in Shipol) or in the passport. It is a 1:1 verification system, using a biometric. Thats it. 3) 99,99% accuracy: Irisrecognition offers an statistical accuracy of 1:1E78. In all pilots and installations, there have been no false accepts reported so far. 4) Use of contact lenses or other fakes: Irisrecognition does not simply use a picture but uses a hash of the human iris. Fakes like pictures and lenses will be recognized by so called countermeasures implemented in the software. After extensive research of private and governmental institutions, these CMs where tested and proven so far. This is the reason, why Iridians software received the Common Criteria certification by the end of 2003. For more detailed information on Irisrecognition, please have alook at the following websites: - Prof. John Daughman, Inventor of Irisrecognition http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/jgd1000/ - Iridian Technologies http://www.iridiantech.com/basics.php?page=1 or feel free to contact me. Best regards A.Lau byometric systems GmbH
I am very sorry for the bad experiences that your friends made. I won't deny that discrimination of foreigners is persistent and it will differ for foreigners depending on the national background.
Russians are probably especially vulnerable to the kind of police harassment that you described because your average cop will immediate equate Russian with Russian mafia until proven innocent. Not a pretty picture. They would almost certainly not enforce the ID law if you'd be fluent in German or English and can explain to them how you are and what you're about.
Since my American wife was an accented foreigner I believed I was getting some insight on how your average German approaches an English speaker. Either they would immediately try to speak English with her or later when her accent was too good to recognize that she was a foreigner they mistook her for slow of mind. The latter always drove her furious.
BTW Germany shares these stupid citizenship laws with Switzerland. In fact there they are even stricter that in Germany even if married to a Swiss person they will make it very hard for you to become Swiss.
I simply do not understand these laws. To me there is no point in defining a nation on an ethnic basis. Germany has a vibrant culture that can stand on its own. We should dispose of this historic baggage in a hurry and follow the French lead again.
Almost all modern days laws in Germany go back to Napoleon. It's about time we finish the job and model citizenship and separation of church and state after the French example as well.