Privacy security

Next: Our Surveillance Society is About to Become a Lot More Intrusive

This Minority Report scenario might be a step closer to actually happening. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s CyLab Biometrics Center have developed a technology that can detect and recognize a human iris as far away as 40 feet away. The iris, like a fingerprint or the shape of the ear, is unique to each individual, and so iris scanning and recognition is useful for identification purposes.

Iris recognition technology is nothing new, but such systems assume that the person whose eyes are being scanned is cooperating, allowing their iris to be scanned. Think of a key-entry system, where instead of showing a card or a fingerprint, the person’s iris is being scanned.