CRIME Iris scanners in Canadian airports

From: Greg Jorgensen (gregj@private)
Date: Fri Sep 27 2002 - 02:51:55 PDT

  • Next message: Greg Jorgensen: "Re: Identity Theft (was: CRIME Computers vulnerable at Oregon department)"

    Slashdot is carrying a link to a story in the Toronto Star:
    
    "The Toronto Star is reporting that the first biometrics (iris-scanning, 
    specifically) devices in airports will be in place in Toronto and 
    Vancouver starting in March. These devices are meant to speed up the 
    check-in process for frequent travellers, without compromising security. 
    It is stressed that privacy advocates have nothing to worry about, 
    because they are completely voluntary and cannot be used to scan without 
    a person's knowledge, but there is a brief note about using it in the 
    future for staff."
    
     From the article in the Star:
    "The iris scan is touted as being virtually foolproof as an 
    identification tool because the colourful ring around the pupil is 
    unique from eyeball to eyeball and person and person. Unlike a 
    fingerprint, it can't be replicated, and the machines recognize only 
    "live" eyes."
    
    Pretty bold claims... apparently "Minority Report" hasn't opened in 
    Canada yet. Who wants to bet that someone fools one of these machines 
    with a box of crayons within three months?
    
    It can't be too long before the iris scanning kiosks start spewing out 
    customized grocery coupons just for me.
    
    Go look at Slashdot... the Toronto Star uses unfriendly URLs.
    
    -- 
    Greg Jorgensen
    PDXperts LLC, Portland, Oregon, USA
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Sep 27 2002 - 03:13:02 PDT