HOMELAND SECURITY WILL TAKE RETINA SCANS WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND SOMEDAY CONTROL YOUR ACCESS TO THE INTERNET AND YOUR PHONE

Big Brother wants to scan your iris without your knowledge. Sarnoff Labs in New Jersey, US, has been working on a clever homeland security system for the US government. It scans people's irises as they walk towards a checkpoint, without them even knowing it. Current systems require a person to stand still and look directly into a single digital camera from close range. The new system will instead use an array of compact, high resolution cameras, all of which point in slightly different directions and focus at slightly different distances.

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‘Minority Report’ May Come to Real World With Iris Recognition                              Future devices will read irises from more than 30 feet, said Tim Meyerhoff, North American business development director for Iris ID Systems. If Hoyos Corp. has its way, the world will soon resemble a Tom Cruise movie. A closely held company based in Puerto Rico, Hoyos makes devices that photograph human irises for identification purposes, like the technology featured in the films “Mission: Impossible” and “Minority Report.” In five years, the technology will be widely used for airport security, border control and access control, said Neelima Sagar, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan, a research firm based in Mountain View, California. Bank of America is testing iris recognition at its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, said Laura Hunter, a spokeswoman who declined to comment on plans for its future use. The U.S. Homeland Security Department in October tested commercially available iris devices. Iris-recognition technology in the U.S. has raised legal concerns, said Jeffrey D. Neuburger, a partner with the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP in New York who advises companies on technology-related issues. “Privacy is obviously huge,” Neuburger said in a telephone interview. “There’s also liability issues associated with the improper use of biometrics or the inaccurate use of biometrics, like if somebody gets identified as somebody they’re really not because of a failure of technology.” Electronic data can go “all over the world in seconds,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, state affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union. “When your iris scan is suddenly doctored or in the wrong hands, the price you’ve paid becomes apparent,” Lieberman said in a telephone interview. “It’s a little creepy to enter into an era of digital identification that has such a massive absence of privacy protections.”
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Hoyos Group unveiled their new security product, dubbed the EyeLock, at the Finovate financial technology conference. While governments and financial institutions have tried to implement iris scan security before, Hoyos claims this is the first time the technology has been adapted to consumers. The company has already marketed another iris-scan product used in airport security and is researching ways to expand the service to other areas, including mobile phones.
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Homeland Security To Test Iris Scanners
WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department plans to test futuristic iris scan technology that stores digital images of people's eyes. Homeland Security will test cameras that take photos from 3 or 4 feet away, including one that works on people as they walk by, Vemury said.  In 2007, the U.S. military began taking iris scans of thousands of Iraqis to track suspected militants. ACLU lawyer Christopher Calabrese fears that the cameras could be used covertly. "If you can identify any individual at a distance and without their knowledge, you literally allow the physical tracking of a person anywhere there's a camera and access to the Internet," he said. 
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