Computers can ID you and 30-50 other folks as you mind your own business in public

From “Who Will Watch The Watchers?” via underpaidgenius:

Who Will Watch The Watchers?

The city of Leon, Mexico, is installed real-time eye scanners that can identity 50 people per minute in motion, without any participation on their part. These can be set up in public places to identify anyone whose retinal prints are on file.

Jesus Diaz, The End of Privacy: Entire City to Track People With Public Eye Scanners

There are different kinds of machines being installed across Leon, from large scanners—capable of identifying 50 people per minute in motion— to smaller ones—like the EyeSwipe in the video above—that range from 15 to 30 people per minute. These devices are being installed in public places, like train and bus stations, and connected to a database that will track people across the city.

City officials and proponents of the system are hoping that public retinal scans will stop crime and fraud. According to Jeff Carter, CDO of Global Rainmakers:

If you’ve been convicted of a crime, in essence, this will act as a digital scarlet letter. If you’re a known shoplifter, for example, you won’t be able to go into a store without being flagged. Certainly for others, boarding a plane will be impossible.

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The usual arguments in favor run like this:

People that are law-abiding have nothing to fear from this surveillance. It only finds out those that are criminals or people breaking laws. It increases security for all of us. What’s not to like?

But if you worry about government omniscience and the ways that such tools can be misused by the state and its functionaries, you start to have a dull ache in your stomach.

Also, I firmly believe that the gray areas of life need to be conserved. Prostitution — for example — is illegal in the US, but exists, and serves a social function. It should be legal (like many other things) but isn’t. I believe that anonymity in public places is a cornerstone of a broader understanding of society, one that is larger than what is on the law books, or preached in church on Sunday.

Wearing sunglasses will be a subversive act.

via underpaidgenius.com

Yeah, pretty fricken lovely, huh?  They claim retinal scans from dozens of feet away.  Your retina is in the back of your eye—how lasers/cameras have gotten so accurate as to be able to hit the back of your eye at all, let alone ID you by it, is beyond me.  I’m guessing that there are a lot of false positives and that these things are really easy to fool.  Like sunglasses, as Stowe Boyd, from UnderpaidGenius.com, suggests or I’m thinking colored contacts would be more subtle but just as effective. 

Either way, this is truly messed up.  I mean, the whole reason America was founded was to get away from big government abusing its power.  If this becomes legal/commonplace in the US, I say we GPS-chip every elected politician in the country and see how they like being tracked every minute of every day.

Hell, we should already chip them and force them to have Foursquare accounts so that they tweet every time the go from their desk, to the Senate floor (or where ever they go to do their job), to the bathroom, to a cheap motel with their mistress.

I don’t think this sort of thing is good, but if it’s going to happen, it should happen to our leaders, first.