Now Your iPhone Can Read Fingerprints, Scan Irises and ID Your Face

From Wired:

Cops and soldiers may soon be able to pull out their iPhones to track the eyes, facial features, voice and fingerprints of suspected criminals and combatants.

The California-based company AOptix rolled out a new hardware and app package that transforms an iPhone into a mobile biometric reader. As first reported by Danger Room in February, AOptix is the recipient of a $3 million research contract from the Pentagon for its on-the-go biometrics technology.

Opting for what it considers ease of use, the company decided to build its latest biometrics package, which it calls Stratus, atop an iPhone. A peripheral covering wraps around the phone — it’s an inch and a half thick, three inches wide and six inches tall — while the AOptix Stratus app presents a user interface familiar to any iOS user. Except you’re not going to be recording Vine videos, you’re going to be recording the most unique physical features of another human being.

“From an end-user perspective, it’s much, much smaller, lighter and easier to use an app-based capability” than the bulky biometrics tools currently in military use, Joey Pritikin, an AOptix vice president, tells Danger Room. “Anyone who’s used an iPhone before can pick this up and use it.”

The Stratus system is designed to be a “single-handed” device, Pritikin explains. Load the app and tap for iris scanning or facial recognition. The imaging display, readable from about 11 inches distant and using nothing more than the iPhone’s camera, will automatically focus and snap the shot. The phone’s ambient microphone handles voice recording, but fingerprint scanning comes from the back of the Stratus peripheral wraparound, not the iPhone’s touchscreen. Unlike a similar product from Tactivo, there’s no smartcard reader, but it scans more biometric data than someone’s fingerprint.

Anyone who’s ever used an iPhone will also be familiar with the Stratus app’s user experience for typing in annotations to the biometrics collected: small fields that look like any other iOS text feature allow quick notations. Standard iPhone geo-tagging is easy to enable, as a demo walkthrough AOptix showed Danger Room demonstrated. SMTP email functions transmit the biometric information back to a customer’s database. And an open architecture allows Stratus customers to develop their own add-ons.

But Stratus “is not a 99-cent application,” clarifies Amanda North, AOptix’s marketing vice president. The app sells for $199, and the company isn’t disclosing how much its peripheral costs. While conceivably any individual who wants to drop that much money can rig his or her iPhone for biometric collection can, “it’s not a consumer application,” North says.

It’s also not designed for every iPhone: AOptix built Stratus for the iPhone 4 and 4S, citing what it says was customer request. It doesn’t work with the iPhone 5, and the company isn’t saying what its plans are for future iPhone upgrades.

AOptix doesn’t specify its customers, but they’re from the U.S. government: Pritikin says the company has “substantial interest across a wide variety of agencies, not just DOD [the Department of Defense].” At a time of government austerity, it’s a bit curious that the company would have picked high-end Apple devices for its mobile biometrics platform: the Army, for instance, likes cheaper Android phones. Pritikin says AOptix chose iOS because it’s “a much more secure platform.”

Full article by Spencer Ackerman can be found here.

FBI launches $1B ID search program

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is stepping up in its quest to exploit new technology to hunt down criminals, investing in a new system steeped in biometrics.

The FBI's $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) program's aim is to significantly improve the existing fingerprint identification service. The ambitious project may raise the hackles of privacy advocates, but the FBI is intent on including facial recognition, iris scanning, DNA analysis and voice identification tech as the new face of criminal investigation -- reliability and accuracy concerns aside.

The NGI program is also reported to include rolled and latent finger and palm prints.

A pilot scheme is currently being run by the agency compiles all of this information for different purposes. As an example, one test matches up headshots in crowd photos which are then compared with database-stored images from security footage.

Through the NGI, an algorithm would conduct an automatic search and return potential 'hits' to officers. In an additional advancement, a database will store visuals of scars, tattoos and other physical marks.

The FBI has collected this kind of information for a long time. For example, voice recognition can be matched when a recording is sent from another group, as can facial images. However, the new scheme is being rolled out nationwide -- a first for the organization.

In addition, the FBI plans to provide access to the new databases to state law enforcement agencies. In an age of security systems like Trapwire and torrent swarm poisoning, perhaps privacy advocacy groups have a right to be worried -- as the database may also capture and store images of the general public. However, it may also streamline services and make criminal investigations easier for the FBI to conduct.

It is expected to be implemented nationwide by 2014.

Full article can be found here.