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Have Your Fingerprints Read From 6 Meters Away

Posted by timothy on from the give-'em-the-finger-prints dept.

First time accepted submitter Burdell writes "A new startup has technology to read fingerprints from up to 6 meters away. IDair currently sells to the military, but they are beta testing it with a chain of 24-hour fitness centers that want to restrict sharing of access cards. IDair also wants to sell this to retail stores and credit card companies as a replacement for physical cards. Lee Tien from the EFF notes that the security of such fingerprint databases is a privacy concern." Since the last time this technology was mentioned more than a year ago, it seems that the claimed range for reading has tripled, and the fingerprint reader business has been spun off from the company at which development started.

5 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Gloves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So are we going back to the habit of wearing silk gloves all the time now? I wouldn't mind that.

    1. Re:Gloves by kanto · · Score: 5, Funny

      So are we going back to the habit of wearing silk gloves all the time now? I wouldn't mind that.

      Silk gloves for fingerprints, beekeeper suit so as to not shed DNA in the wrong place, mask to obscure facial recognition and a wonky shoes to evade gait detection... Michael Jackson may have been sent from the future.

  2. Re:Absolutely not ... by MilwaukeeMadAss · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Hi. Would you like to open an account today with your purchase? You can save 10%! All we ask is a photo ID and email address that we can reach you at. Oh, and we'll also need a scan of your fingerprints, DNA swab and allow us to implant this teeny tiny device at the base of your skill just beneath your skin. What? Oh don't worry, it only transmits audio commercials to your ear every three minutes. I wouldn't recommend standing near a microwave because you'll piss your pants and forget who you are for about an hour or so."

  3. Re:Absolutely not ... by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They don't need a warrant. They just need to arrest you. If you don't think they have a valid reason to arrest you and don't comply then resisting arrest becomes their reason.

    You can sue them later, but good luck with that and with getting those prints out of the system.

  4. Fingerprints != valid method of identificaton by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are several problems with this technology most importantly how it will be used.

    #1.) Cops will use it like minority report. WOOO we know where you are

    #2.) This leads to number 2. Computers are not really used to perform fingerprint analysis. Yes, they can shorten the list but, in the end, its always a human who decides if its a "match"

    #3.) There is no standard protocol for deciding if two fingerprints match. It is completely subjective. The IAI has flat out said they won't create a protocol because its not possible

    #4.) There is no predictable margin of error. Frankly with no protocol and 100% subjective human interpretation, there is no way to quantify the probability of a match or more importantly, the margin of error.....heck, fingerprint analysts have been shown to make different identification to the same prints on different days and in different context.

    #4) fingerprint analysis operates on the assumption that all fingerprints are unique (or unique within a reasonable margin of error). There has never been any evidence to support this assumption. Even the FBI with probably the worlds largest fingerprint database has never published any data suggesting finger prints are unique.

    This all leads to the worst part. Law Enforcement will put this in an automated system to read our prints around town and assume its good enough to harass, arrest and convict citizens.

    I don't like where this is going.

    Dont get me wrong, its cool tech. Its just going to make a mess of things