Biometrics and Prisons
"Prisons Aim to Keep, and Keep Ahead of, Convicts
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Key tool: Biometrics
Stopping contraband from getting in is one thing - but the main goal is stopping people from getting out.
Biometric devices are widely used in California prisons to irrefutably ensure that individuals - whether guards or convicts - are who they say they are. Biometric verification relies on the digitization of unique human features, such as the structures of the eye, voice, or fingerprints.
In the outside world, having your retina or iris scanned can be an inconvenience. Not so in the coercive environment of the clink, where biometric technology is used to great effect, says Calum Bunney, editor of the UK-based magazine Biometric Technology Today.
"A bank will obviously not want to put its customers off by falsely rejecting them when they want to access their account via a biometric ATM," he says. "A prison, on the other hand, has a captive audience, and can make the user of a biometric device perform the actions required for passing as many times as it likes until it is satisfied. Who cares if the customer doesn't like it?" he said.
Several US prisons already use retina- and iris-scanning technologies to ensure that a prisoner being released really is the man he says he is.
The California Department of Corrections has used biometrics for years to track the comings and goings of guards. The system uses a "blacked-out" barcode, invisible to the naked eye, on an ID card, in combination with a fingerprint reader. Alarms are tripped if a guard fails to check in with the system after a given time.
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wired.com |
