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Police To Begin iPhone Iris Scans

Posted by samzenpus on from the look-at-the-phone-citizen dept.

cultiv8 writes "Dozens of police departments nationwide are gearing up to use a tech company's already controversial iris- and facial-scanning device that slides over an iPhone and helps identify a person or track criminal suspects. The smartphone-based scanner, named Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, is made by BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be deployed by officers out on the beat or back at the station. An iris scan, which detects unique patterns in a person's eyes, can reduce to seconds the time it takes to identify a suspect in custody. This technique also is significantly more accurate than results from other fingerprinting technology long in use by police, BI2 says. When attached to an iPhone, MORIS can photograph a person's face and run the image through software that hunts for a match in a BI2-managed database of U.S. criminal records. Each unit costs about $3,000."

19 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. And Lemme Guess... by The+O+Rly+Factor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Telling the cop that he's gonna need a warrant to use it on you will get you slapped with an obstruction of justice and resisting arrest charge, right? That's usually the crime given to those rouge renegades that dare try to use their rights.

    1. Re:And Lemme Guess... by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does a normal picture at a reasonable distance, even a distance as small as a foot, manage to get an accurate representation of one's iris? I don't think that even the highest quality cameras on the market are that good. The camera must be in one's face and the subject must not move, blink, or move one's eye (which could require some kind of restraining of the individual).

      Obtaining an iris scan is probably invasive enough to require a compelling reason to perform it, and my guess is that under most circumstances that means that one is either 1) already being arrested, or 2) being served a warrant for the collection of it.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:And Lemme Guess... by The+O+Rly+Factor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because it seems like the equivalent of being booked, fingerprinted, and mugshot every time you get pulled over for a traffic violation. If you don't like the picture and the information on my ID, then go fuck yourself.

    3. Re:And Lemme Guess... by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's a major difference between being "photographed" and "Citizen! Stand still, hold your eyelids open, let us photograph it, then wait while we find your identity!" Whether that major difference will be recognized by the courts is another matter.

      And, in case you think something not being in the constitution is a good reason why such a thing SHOULD not be in the constitution, realize it would have been pretty impressive were the founding fathers to predict cameras and iphones and put protections in against them.

    4. Re:And Lemme Guess... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A ban against this absolutely SHOULD NOT be in the constitution. It would be ridiculous to try and imagine every single thing that could possibly be invented in the future to infringe on our rights. The constitution lays down rights such as "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures". ANYTHING that violates these rights is unconstitutional. I think the 4th amendment does a fine job here.

      Now, anything in "plain view" is obviously not protected by the 4th amendment. Seems to me that although your iris is in "plain view", specific details about it are not. Anything that requires a $3000 lens assembly attached to a sophisticated piece of electronic equipment cannot possibly be regarded as "in plain view" by any reasonable person. The problem is that lawyers and police officers are usually far from reasonable and generally have little, if any, common sense.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    5. Re:And Lemme Guess... by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Take a picture of someone, fine.

      Hold them down to scan their iris though? Gimme a break...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    6. Re:And Lemme Guess... by flaming+error · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The constitution was not intended to be about citizens. It originally enumerated responsibilities of the government, and placed restrictions on the government.

      The Bill of Rights were amendments placed there to appease the fears of certain states who worried the federal government might get out of hand.

      These amendments are not some whitelist of rights that the founders generously allowed us little people, they are lines in the sand that indicate when the federal government is becoming the master instead of the servant.

      This "there is no constitutional right" thinking is bullshit. We The People have the right to do anything the hell we want that doesn't infringe on the rights of our brothers.

      What the government thinks our rights should be is [supposed to be] irrelevant - if we want their opinion, we should give it to them.

      But alas, we have collectively accepted a role as obedient subjects to a higher authority, and The Constitution has become just another brand of toilet paper.

    7. Re:And Lemme Guess... by slashqwerty · · Score: 5, Informative

      That didn't stop the US Supreme Court from ruling that police helicopters operating infared cameras scanning houses from above were not a "search."

      I think you are referring to Kyllo v United States which ruled exactly the opposite of what you have stated. The court concluded that using infrared cameras to scan homes for leaking heat is a search and thus requires a warrant under the fourth amendment. The basis for the court's opinion was very similar to the grandparent post.

      Of course, that ruling also involved Clarence "just bribe my wife" Thomas. So, maybe it'll one day be reversed by a saner court.

      The ruling did indeed involve Thomas who joined the majority opinion in a 5-4 decision. Quite frankly I would consider any court that reverses the ruling to be less sane.

    8. Re:And Lemme Guess... by Dan667 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      9th Amendment protects any rights that are not covered in the Constitution.

    9. Re:And Lemme Guess... by protektor · · Score: 3, Informative

      You might want to think again and look up all the lawsuits that celebrities have filed against paparazzi for using giant telephoto lens to take pictures through their house windows and all of that. The photographers are on public property but that still doesn't get them out of trouble most of the time. There is also the issue of you are not free to photograph just anyone for any reason you want. There are court rulings, thus laws against that as well. There is also the issue of recording people, and their expectation of privacy. There are loads of legal precedence to cover privacy. It isn't in the Constitution per-say but many will and have argued that "the pursuit of happiness" and right against "unreasonable search and seizure" are the foundations for expected privacy. Many people have argued quite successfully that those are directly things that show people have a right to be left alone, thus privacy. There is a lot of case law that backs up this idea as well. So while you think you may be right that there is no Constitutional right to privacy, I would bet that in fact most lawyers would say that is not the case and you are not looking at the intent of the founding fathers and what they wrote about before and while crafting the Constitution. Remember many of the states forced compromises on the federal government to sign the Constitution because they wanted the federal government to stay the hell out of the states business and let them run things rather than the federal government always telling them what they can and can't do. They also wanted the governments in general to stay the hell out of people's lives other than the absolute bare minimum that was required. Somehow this country has gotten so very far away from that idea. So clearly what you are saying is not correct in reality. You do have a legal expectation of privacy in the US.

    10. Re:And Lemme Guess... by protektor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People forget what the founding fathers said about rights. They said that all rights come from God or the people or a higher power or whatever. Right absolutely do not come from the government in any way shape or form. You have every right you were born with, unless that right is specifically taken away. I do not see any laws passed or things added to the US Constitution that says I have to give up my right to privacy. So until such a law is passed by the majority of the people, I will always have my right to privacy and it doesn't come from the government to allow me the right to privacy. You have to understand what the US Constitution actually is, what it is crafted to do, and what powers and rights it gives to the Federal government. It also helps if you read the federalist papers, the letters and such written around that time, and the Constitutional Congress minutes to get an idea of what they were trying to do. You might want to look at what was going on in Europe and how it was run to get an idea of how they were trying to do things differently.

    11. Re:And Lemme Guess... by Jaysyn · · Score: 4, Informative

      The constitution limits what the government can do, not what you can't do. However, the US Supreme Court has declared that the "Right to Privacy" is inherent from the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th & 14th Amendments.

      http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html

      http://www.usconstitution.net/constnot.html#privacy

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
  2. Re:Why iPhone? by mswhippingboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because Apple has a patent on the eye phone.

    --
    Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
  3. Facial Recognition Screws With the Wrong Man by Coolhand2120 · · Score: 3, Informative
    That's great, except for when it's not:
    From gizmodo:

    Technology may be a pivot for many of our lives, but it's not exactly infallible. A Massachusetts man learnt that the hard way, after his driver's license was flagged as a fake on the police system, due to a facial-recognition error.

    It seems John H. Gass looks rather similar to another Massachusetts driver, causing the system to revoke his license after figuring his must be the fake. Rather than head down to the DVLA to sort out the problem, he was instead banned from driving for two weeks, and only won it back after he managed to prove he was who he said he was. Worse yet, it's estimated another 1,000 drivers faced a similar problem last year.

    The facial recognition software that the state of Massachusetts uses is identical to the one 34 other states use, paving the way for many more opportunities of mistaken identity for the future.

    1. Re:Facial Recognition Screws With the Wrong Man by KahabutDieDrake · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not it will not. Portable DNA matching? You have been watching a little too much CSI my friend. It still takes a lab full of equipment, consumables and trained professionals to create a DNA profile and compare it to a sample or database. Even then, it's not nearly as accurate as you've been lied to believe. See, they don't actually sequence your DNA that would take too long, so they only do a profile. Which, while it might match a sample from the crime scene, it does not positively identify any one person. Only a class of people.

      For instance, if the sample from the crime scene came from a white male of non-jewish decent, then that sample profile will match something like 15% of all white males of non-jewish decent. Even more, it will match all the males in a particular blood line. (depending on sample).

    2. Re:Facial Recognition Screws With the Wrong Man by pipedwho · · Score: 5, Informative

      Mod parent up.

      DNA testing is far more useful to prove exclusion with great confidence, because the 'match' size is only one to one. But - that does NOT mean we can extend this methodology to prove a positive match against a database with thousands of random entries. If a sample does not match the suspect, then it can generally be shown that the sample did NOT originate from the suspect - the inverse however, is not necessarily true.

      When samples do match to some degree, it can only be shown that there is some likelihood that a sample came from the suspect - a likelihood that is completely dependent on the search criteria and database size when matching the sample to a list of 'suspects'. The bigger the database, the less reliable the result.

      For example, if a there are three unrelated people in a room, and I take a sample from each one of them, then a lab could determine with extreme confidence which sample goes with which person. If I do the same with 10000 random people in the room, the probability of correctly identifying a given sample falls dramatically - in fact, it is likely that the sample will 'match' hundreds of people.

      As can be seen from the above examples, Gataca / [insert favourite TV crime show] style DNA matching is still far from realistic with current technology.

  4. What happens by Dyinobal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What happens if I refuse to open my eyes for the required scan? Is it resisting arrest? can closing your eyes during an arrest be considered resisting? Will they mace me to get my eyes open? and won't that effect the scan?

    1. Re:What happens by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You pre-suppose that I did anything.

      If I am randomly stopped by a police officer who wishes to take an iris scan, this isn't about me being innocent and 'working with the police to prove my innocence' ... This completely violates the assumption that I am innocent in the first place. On what basis have you established that I might not be innocent? Because you don't like my hat?

      I seriously don't get people who think it is natural that I should subject myself to being arbitrarily catalogued and identified on the whim of some cop with a shiny gadget.

      There used to be a presumption that I was free to go about my business, until a police officer had probable cause. In your version of things, random stops and 'papers please' becomes the norm ... This is not what a free society does.

      What you are effectively saying is "think of the children" ... The mistaken belief that we should allwaive our rights so that the nebulous concept of "the greater good" can be served.

      Fuck that.

      Police don't get to walk up to me on the street and 'suggest' that I allow myself to be fingerprinted ... WTF is different about this just because it s fast and automated?

      If you don't get this, you are part of the problem.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Re:What a waste. by VirginMary · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So let me get this straight. I can't afford an iphone, but taxes are being taken from my meager paycheck in order to give them to police officers and soldiers?

    You probably can't afford a tank or fighter plane either and taxes are taken from your paycheck in order to give them to soldiers. What's your point?

    --
    When 1person suffers from a delusion,it is called insanity.When many people suffer from a delusion,it is called religion