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."

Comments

Re:Beware?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I don't understand why I should be wary of this technology in and of itself. It's no different than a fingerprint scanner or a handful of other biometric scanners ..."

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 .

Re:Beware?

[jamesh]

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?

Re:So I guess

[iammani]

What about the inability to change passwords (compromised passwords for example)? Isnt that a big security risk too?

Re:Beware?

[dgatwood]

You're grossly oversimplifying things. A lot of factors have contributed:

• Laws forbidding foreign ownership of property.
• A government that does little to combat abject poverty.
• Brain drain to the U.S. and other countries.
• Bad people who prey upon the poor to be drug mules, growers, etc.
• Ineffectual police enforcement in Mexico.
• A U.S. drug policy that encourages black market trade rather than controlled trade.
• Utter failure on the part of the U.S. government to combat abject poverty.
• Bad people who prey upon the poor and offer them a better life through dealing drugs.
• Ineffectual district attorneys who would rather "get tough on drug users" than offer plea bargains in exchange for ratting out their pushers (the original purpose of prohibiting use of these drugs).
• Ineffectual police enforcement that similarly focuses on busting users instead of dealers.

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.