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Police To Begin iPhone Iris Scans
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.