Humour

Scan it again, computer

T A Balasubramanian on taking biometric technology to new frontiers

You, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle Corporation, are engaged in a fresh tour around the many attractions at the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), accompanied, as usual, by the ever-curious Danny DeVito, your CTO and associate, who happens to be a biped walking humanoid and a replica of the Hollywood original.

As you turn a corner and enter a hall designated for new products, you come face to face with an old friend and a former police chief, Johnny Locker. In his current avatar, Locker, as you note on a large display at the stall next to which he stands, is the founder of BioSmart, a cutting edge research lab. Among other things, BioSmart promotes a new line of high security devices that, according to one brochure, ‘promise to take biometric technology to new frontiers.’

“Well, Papyrus, it’s been years, eh?” says the hefty man with a laugh, as he shakes hands. He looks keenly at your partner, so you introduce him to DeVito, who seems fascinated by the encounter.

“New frontiers in biometrics, Locker? Seems a big jump from your investigative duties,” you remark, after exchanging notes about your respective career tracks.

“Not really—it is more a high-tech extension of what I used to do. After I retired from the police force, I decided to put my experience to good use. So here at Biosmart, we have the absolutely latest detection technologies at your disposal.”

“Go on, we’re all ears.”

“All fingers and all eyes would be more like it,” guffaws Locker. “Think fingerprints, think iris scanning. As the name implies, it relates to specific biological features which can be measured, recorded and then used as a form of identification. Fingerprints and iris scanning are just the two most commonly discussed.”

“Ah, so the police officer comes up with new tools to catch criminals?”

“You’ll be surprised at how many uses we can find for these scans beyond police work. For one thing, good old fingerprints—which have been used to tag criminals for more than a century—are increasingly becoming more prominent in places where people meet security systems—such as banks, shops, airports—or even their own homes. The financial guys are looking at fingerprints to check your identity and adding a further layer of security, such as at cash points or at point-of-sale equipment where a biometric ‘signature’ would be needed to complete a transaction. Some governments are looking at biometrics as a way of increasing the security of passport control and stamping out benefit fraud and illegal immigration—creating a more complex verification process for determining whether you are who you say you are.”

“Are these systems foolproof? I have seen these eerie movies where there are people stealing other people’s eyes and fingers. There is Nicolas Cage, for example, taking a thumb print off a champagne glass, and using it to get into a super-secret room,” says DeVito.

“Ah, Hollywood makes it all seem so easy!” guffaws Locker. “Well, it is possible, but rare. We have this early morbid case of a man who removed his grandfather’s finger posthumously and used it to hoodwink the country’s pension system for as long as he could get away with it. He thought it was part of his family inheritance. But such duplicity would need collusion at the ‘official’ level. The other way someone could duplicate a finger is to make a cast of their finger, and as we have seen, it is quite cumbersome to do these things. In most places, there should be somebody present to check that a live, attached and genuine finger is being used. Our advanced systems have a ‘living finger’ test—which means they will detect if the finger is real tissue. So basically a fingerprint is not useful unless it is actually connected to the rightful owner.”

“What is it that makes all this worth the investment?”

“Well, that depends on the business. For retailers, our fingerprint scanners could reduce costs incurred by bad cheques and stolen credit cards—though it may actually mean inconveniencing you when you shop. After all, you cannot forge a fingerprint. Also, what we do is to create multiple checks. You offer a finger, a payment option such as a credit card or bank account information, and two forms of identity. Gone are the gigantic bulky fingerprint scanners of the early days. A scan is taken on a sensor no larger than a thumb-sized key on your PC and your finger’s topography is measured and converted into a numerical code using a proprietary algorithm. To pay, you press your fingertip on the sensor and enter a password, which is used to expedite the database search.”

“So what’s the next product you have here? It looks like a little camera…”

“Well, this is the new BioSmart Facer,” says Locker. “It includes, as you rightly observer, a camera—but this one has our proprietary technology which ‘reads’ faces in a crowd. The software creates a digital map of your face by translating the contours into mathematical formulas that are nearly as distinguishable as fingerprints. Facer picks 80 points between the nose, cheekbones and eyes. Faces that match at least 85 percent of the points of a database image will trigger an alarm. Under optimal conditions, the error rate for matches is less than one percent—and the software accounts for changes in lighting, facial hair and aging. Our database contains digital photos of people—maybe wanted persons, such as felons with outstanding warrants or missing children. It is becoming practical, and you will find face recognition systems like these popping up in places everywhere—and you may not even know they are there.”

“So what happens to my privacy?”

“What are you talking about? Your face, like your fingerprint, is already a bar code. Everyone’s face is unique, and people can use your face to recognize you. All that the technology does is to use your face instead of your finger.”

“Ah, not so fast, Locker,” you say. “My finger is attached to me, and I choose when and where I present it to a machine. And I know when I am being fingerprinted because I touch something. On the other hand, your camera is free to scan my face whether I like it or not, and it does not get pressed against my face. That makes it an abominable intrusion.”

“That’s right,” says DeVito. “It’s Big Brother watching.”

“Oh, come on—I look at this not as Big Brother. Not as little brother, and not even as a distant cousin,” Locker says unctuously. “I agree that among the many biometric technologies we have here, face recognition requires the least cooperation from the individual. But look at it this way—it’s nothing more than a tool for catching felons. If you don’t have anything to worry about when you talk to the law, then it’s not a threat to you. Clearly, when you are on a street with a hundred other people, you can have very little expectation of privacy, Papyrus.”

“I don’t care, Locker,” you say, “My face is not up for grabs on a camera unless I say so.”

“That’s right,” says DeVito with vehemence. “No movie director gets me on his project unless I sign up for it.”