Slashdot Mirror
Iris Scanning Set To Secure City In Mexico
kkleiner writes "The million-plus citizens of Leon, Mexico are set to become the first example of a city secured through the power of biometric identification. Iris and face scanning technologies from Global Rainmakers, Inc. will allow people to use their eyes to prove their identify, withdraw money from an ATM, get help at a hospital, and even ride the bus. Whether you're jealous or intimidated by Leon's adoption of widespread eye identification you should pay attention to the project – similar biometric checkpoints are coming to locations near you. Some are already in place."
There is one major difference. The government can sell the idea if Iris scanning much easier than fingerprinting to the masses. If they ask me to give a fingerprint to enter that is old technology, and closely identified with what happens to criminals to most people. As opposed to: You want me to look into this thing to enter? You mean like on Mission Impossible! Wow that's cool! Where do I sign up?
As you rightly point out, there is no reason to fear most technological innovations in and of themselves. The justified and proper concern enters the equation when we start to ask not how this can be used, but rather how it will likely be abused .
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
In an imaginary world, we shouldn't, but this is reality so it is not ours to give or deny. It would be nice if we had some kind of control over this, but we have absolutely none, which is why I identified this as a reason for concern rather than a call for action.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
husbands, wives and other people who trust each other will no longer be able to lend their partner an ATM card and ask them to go take out some cash. Well done banks, for making technology slightly less useful while still allowing a crook to put a gun to your head and force you to make that withdrawal.
Sharing passwords is a bad idea because it's a big security risk, so the inability to share passwords is a plus. If you want someone to have permanent access to your account then add another card (or Iris) to your account. If you don't want them to have permanent access, then you shouldn't be giving them your password.
This is yet another example of a multinational corporation taking advantage of corrupt governments in Mexico and Latin America to push undesirable and invasive technologies and business practices upon ignorant and disadvantaged populations. Of course, even the ignorant can become informed and once the people of Leon see the sorts of uses to which corrupt government officials will put this new technology the backlash will begin: el pueblo unido jamás será vencido.
I don't like being tracked, especially when I'm on the way back from the head shop
Certainly you may pay cash instead, Citizen, but might I inquire what it is you are trying to hide?
ATM Menu -> add new allowed user. Scan his/her face. Shoot account owner in head, empty account. Done.
FIFY.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
What about the inability to change passwords (compromised passwords for example)? Isnt that a big security risk too?
Secured? Hardly. Monitored might be a good description, but "secured" can't be done with a camera no matter how smart the software is. Security is a human thing and accurate, reliable monitoring is just one piece of an overall security process.
You're grossly oversimplifying things. A lot of factors have contributed:
There's plenty of blame to spread around on both sides of the fence. I do agree, though, that the best way to end drug violence is to create a legal marketplace for the least harmful and most common of those drugs. Prohibition never works if you're talking about products that people want to consume. You'd think the government would have learned this eighty years ago. The only way they got the U.S. back under control was by repealing prohibition. Sadly, the "morally superior" never learn. They just keep standing there in their ivory towers issuing edicts, repeating the same mistakes, and wondering why the side of the tower is burning.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
gringo, this is how it spreads.
In a country where drug lords rule, you want to spend how much money on this technology? How about using that cash to support basic infrastructure like roads and potable water?
If tobacco and liquor are allowed and have the same detrimental effects, then I don't see the logic.
Actually, if marijuana truly is acting as a gateway drug, that's all the more reason to legalize it. I didn't bring up that point because the debate over the concept of "gateway drugs" is highly contentious at best.
All of your acquaintances who moved from marijuana to something else did so because they already knew a dealer who dealt other stuff, or at least knew people who did. If they were buying pot from legal dealers instead of on the black market, that relationship---that connection---would not exist, and thus those people would be much less likely to move on to harder drugs.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I think the point is that your eye is being scanned by lots of different parties, with equipment that you don't have control over. You can't be sure they're only "md5 hashing" the resulting data, for all you know they might store it so they can "duplicate" your eye... Just like what happens with bank cards.