August 15th, 2007Never Get Locked Out of the House Again
The Japanese are the most inventive people on the planet. If there’s a problem to be solved, chances are the Japanese already have some tool or gadget to do it. Case in point is Matsushita’s (Panasonic) new biometric system; the Walkthrough Iris Identification System.
Iris identification is a biometric authentication technology that uses patterns in our eyes as a key mechanism, and does not rely on ID badges or passwords that people could forget. This form of biometric identification, however, face a challenge of not always being accurate. Matsushita’s new units boast a failure rate of below 1 in 1.2-million scans.
This new system is more natural and easy to use compared to existing systems as it does not require people who are verified to focus on the equipment. To enable verification of a person walking (at 1 meter per second) from a distance greater than one meter, the company improved the camera composition and developed an “eye position sensing technology” similar to most facial recognition technologies found with existing commercial cameras. This system quickly processes the data before a person passes in front of the system.
What I really like about this technology is that it can be used in quite a number of applications. One might immediately think to put these in airports or businesses that require high security, but I’d like to see one of these units connected to the front door of my house. Just think about how much easier it would be to get inside while carrying groceries in both hands. Finding the right key when coming home in the middle of the night would also become a non-issue.
Naturally, there are cases where technology like this could be used to invade our privacy. Just like we witnessed in The Minority Report, retailers could position these by their doors and welcome us back by name and pester us with targeted campaigns. However, I do not believe that retailers would be foolish enough to use the technology this way as cusomers would very quickly stop coming (I would immediately walk out if some computer referred to me by name and kept on talking). That said, it might be a pretty good deterrent to people who have been caught shoplifting. If security could be notified immediately that a banned person has entered the store, then employees will not have to remember such things.
I doubt technology like this will be available for home markets in the next few years, but it would certainly be nice to walk up to a door and have it automatically unlock for me. There are dangers, in that someone might start gouging out the eyes of people with access to bank vaults and the like, but hopefully the software will be intelligent enough to catch such things.
Jason, did you know they will soon start fingerprinting foreigners coming into Japan? A lot of foreigners already here are pretty against it, but Japan used to do it and are just bringing it back.
Since so many people are up in arms about this, do you think they’d make the same fuss if we had to walk through an “Iris Identification System” at the airport? I’d actually enjoy it!
Hi Nick,
I don’t see why people would be against a fingerprint database, unless they plan on committing a crime. I wrote about how Japan’s landing procedures are being changed a few weeks back, and I think that this is one of the least invasive technologies available. The worst thing that can happen if they collect lots of fingerprints is mis-identify a print at a crime scene. We know that sometimes there are problems with databases, but the odds of being incorrectly identified via fingerprints are less than the odds for the Walkthrough Iris Identification System.
It’s all good, though. I was thinking that a technology like this would be pretty cool at home, or even attached to a car (if it could be miniturized enough). What better way to make things more convenient for you, as well as harder to steal? Sure, people could be used as “keys” against thier will to gain access to posessions or buildings, but I can’t think of a single tool created by us that hasn’t been used in some crime or another.
Yeah, they just feel as though they are being labelled as criminals because Japanese natives won’t be fingerprinted. I gave my fingerprints when I first came here. It didn’t bother me then, and it doesn’t bother me now. Hmm… I wonder if they still have them?
Definitely cool. Combine these with sliding doors and you’re on the Starship Enterprise!