Unrecognised iris
A piece from New Scientist’s Back Page may help explain why iris recognition, originally touted as one of the ID Card’s biometrics, was recently dropped:
Anything that makes air travel less miserable has to be worth a try, so we jumped at the chance of registering for the fast-track Iris Recognition Immigration System, aka IRIS, being tested by the British government.
You register at the airport by looking into a camera that stores your iris pattern and passport number. Our first attempt at registering failed, however, because the official in charge of the camera at London’s Heathrow airport could not remember the PIN needed to work his machine.
A second try a few weeks later was successful. So on the way back into Heathrow after our travels we smugly left our friends in a long passport queue, went into the IRIS cubicle and looked into the camera. After many failed attempts at aligning our eyes with optical markers, the machine lost patience and told us to leave. An official appeared and said the malfunction might be down to the machine thinking our suitcase was a child being smuggled through.
As there was no one else waiting we tried again, this time holding the suitcase well clear. Again the computer said no. After a third failed attempt, the official reappeared and said spectacles must be the problem.
“But we need spectacles to see the eye markers,” we complained. By this time all our friends had long since shown their passports, sailed through and were waiting with mocking smiles on their faces.
The IRIS machine screen was now also showing a Windows message, “Symantec PC Anywhere - Unknown error”.
“Ah,” sighed the official. “We’ll have to reboot the whole thing now.”
British government electronic technology triumphs again.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:23 am
That’s a beaut, Andrew.
I have added it to my collection of biometrics stories.
This collection is available to anyone requiring evidence of the (un)reliability of the biometrics the Home Office have chosen for ePassports and ID cards.
Too often, the Home Office give the impression that these biometrics are nearly 100% reliable. They aren’t.
Too often, campaigners sell the pass by acceding in that impression. The fear isn’t that we can all be authoritatively identified by our biometrics. To campaign on that basis is to grant the Home Office’s 100% claim.
The real outrage is that these biometrics don’t identify us reliably. The money spent on them is wasted.
These matters are discussed at some length in dematerialised ID, which I commend to you. (The material in that link is copyrighted and I would ask anyone who uses it to give a citation.)
Biometrics are not a minor bolt-on to the ID cards schemes proposed for the UK and other countries. They are an essential component and a critique of biometrics is therefore an important part of the general campaign against ID cards.
April 17th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
[…] boot the whole thing now.” British government electronic technology triumphs again. From No2ID.net This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 6:23 pm […]
April 18th, 2007 at 8:12 am
As posted here on NO2ID, there are aspects of the system architecture chosen by the Government for their Project Iris that (intentionally or carelessly) give up accuracy in biometric identification for something else (a few seconds of passenger time or “border crossing channel time”), that the Government presumably views as more valuable.
Now, as a passenger, I’m delighted if the Government values my time: I’d like to see more of it too. However, the lack of supporting evidence elsewhere keeps me sceptical.
It is an interesting question as to whether biometrics can be made worthwhile overall (sufficiently accurate and sufficiently cost-effective) at this time for unsupervised identity checks at borders (even if just of registered frequent travellers). However, actively choosing to slug identification performance in this way (use of one-to-many matching) is surely not the way to go about it.
The issue is, perhaps, one of enamourment with technology, rather than rational engagement: so nothing new there then!
Best regards
April 18th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Old techies will share with me a warm glow of recognition. Symantec PC Anywhere. (Sigh) Even older ones will remember Norton PC Anywhere (or was it Anyware?). Five-and-a-quarter-inch diskettes. 300 bits-per-second Hayes Smartmodems.
Of course, that was last millennium. Not this one. Not the 21st century and new Labour’s innovative vision of joined up broadband government. Wasn’t it?