"The Schwarzenegger administration is considering buying $5,000 high-tech devices to photograph and fingerprint Californians who get subsidized in-home care for the elderly and disabled.
The MorphoTrak 'mobile biometric identification' device can fingerprint, snap a photo and transfer data to government systems, according to state social service officials.
Officials say legislators authorized and budgeted money to invest in tools to curb fraud and save millions of dollars.
The fingerprinting applies as of April 1 to any new recipients of the In-Home Supportive Services program.
Sacramento and San Diego counties are experimenting with cameras on loan from the manufacturer." ...source
"IBM has filed applications for a dozen patents that seek a whole new level of airport security.
Forget full-body scans, which are currently being touted as the Next Big Thing™ in security in the wake of the Christmas Day Nigerian crotchbomber. We can't even be sure they would have stopped him.
The IBM patent applications, turned up by InformationWeek's Alexander Wolfe, outline technologies that track you as you stroll through an airport, sniff you, check out what you're eating and drinking, scrutinize your attire, watch for 'furtive' eye movements, and employ a host of other sensors.
That information is then fed to an inference engine that compares the sensors' data to a knowledge base and alerts security if its set of rules determine you might be a threat. And all of this will be done in real time - or, at least, real enough to nab you before you get on an airliner and activate your lethal underpants.
The core idea of the patents is to use a variety of sensors arrayed throughout an airport, both indoors in out. These sensors attempt to both spot suspicious activity and find already-identified suspects, matched to a knowledge base of possible terrorists."...more
"The initiative to create a biometric database with information on every Israeli citizen took a giant step forward yesterday when a special Knesset subcommittee approved the bill that would require every Israeli to carry a biometric identification card and passport from mid-2010.
The second and third parliamentary vote on the bill will be held in a special Knesset session during the summer recess. Advertisement
The biometric documentation will contain chips with digitally stored images of the carrier and scans of their fingerprints.
Within a year, if the bill is passed, all Israelis will have to have their pictures taken and undergo fingerprinting." ...more
Lockheed Martin and IBM will join together to develop and maintain the Next Generation Identification system for the FBI. NGI is the new multi-modal, state-of–the-art biometrics system that will be used by state, local and federal authorities.
The NGI system will now also include palm prints, iris and facial recognition capabilities in addition to fingerprints. Lockheed Martin will provide program oversight as well as biometric and large systems development. As a subcontractor, IBM will provide information technology services, as well as specific software and hardware to be used in the NGI system.
IBM had previously protested the contract award to Lockheed. It wasn't immediately know if the computing giant dropped its protest bid with this announcement....source
Check out this eyeopening video: "IBM and the Holocaust"
Airline passengers are to be screened with facial recognition technology rather than checks by passport officers, in an attempt to improve security and ease congestion, the Guardian can reveal.
From summer, unmanned clearance gates will be phased in to scan passengers' faces and match the image to the record on the computer chip in their biometric passports.
Border security officials believe the machines can do a better job than humans of screening passports and preventing identity fraud. The pilot project will be open to UK and EU citizens holding new biometric passports.
But there is concern that passengers will react badly to being rejected by an automated gate. To ensure no one on a police watch list is incorrectly let through, the technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives" - innocent passengers rejected because the machines cannot match their appearance to the records.
They may be redirected into conventional passport queues, or officers may be authorised to override automatic gates following additional checks.
Ministers are eager to set up trials in time for the summer holiday rush, but have yet to decide how many airports will take part. If successful, the technology will be extended to all UK airports. ...read more
