While at work, most employees wear the company's Active Badge, a high-tech identification device that transmits infrared signals every 10 seconds to a network of censors in the building.
Now, those of us on the left who have always led the charge against previous plans, need to stop and ask ourselves whether the steamroller of hi-tech identification which is heading our way will make matters worse for the poorest and most excluded people in our society if we do not go ahead with a compulsory scheme.
With the high-tech identification industry going into full gear with machines that recognize fingerprints and scan the iris, why is Darpa messing with something as old-fashioned as B.O.? Dr. Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Sense Center in Philadelphia, notes that odors can be detected through just a handful of molecules.
Yet the most popular way of pretending to be 21 remains decidedly low tech: using identification that belongs to older friends or siblings.
Why else would the Nagano organizers have instituted a high-tech iris identification test for biathletes?
Using a high-tech voter identification model, Mr. O'Donnell spent more than $30,000 to mail a letter of support from Mr. McCain along with his own 38-page platform to 20,000 independents and Democrats deemed receptive to the message.
A high-tech, biometric identification card was deemed too costly; instead, the group is considering an enhanced E-Verify system that would allow employers to use photographs to identify job applicants and would let workers provide answers to security questions to help prove their legal work status.
According to the company, their system is modular, meaning the vein pattern identification tech could be added to fingerprint-based authentication systems already in use.
ECG identification tech wearable Nymi used it to fund their device Kickstarter-style, and others including Nomiku and GlassUp are now running their pre-order campaigns with it, after having successfully raised funds on other platforms.
The big splashy focus features here are the improved camera and the brand new fingerprint sensor built into the Home button, which powers Apple's new identification tech called Touch ID.
Yet when these systems are inclusive, cost-efficient, context-specific, and led by national authorities (versus external players like foreign tech companies), biometric identification systems are showing increasing promise.
