Mapping Veins As New Fingerprinting

Mapping Veins as a Human 'Bar Code'
By John Borland

http://news.com.com/Mapping+veins+as+a+human+bar+code/2100-1008_3-6034134.html
[print version] Mapping veins as a human 'bar code' CNET News.com

LOS ANGELES--In Memphis, Tenn., a small medical supply company called Luminetx has developed a new method of palm-reading that it hopes will rival fingerprinting or retinal scans as a way to perfectly identify individuals.

Wow! Isn't technology great! We'll be able to scan vein patterns and identify folks just like fingerprints. Well, aren't we embroiled in a debate on the efficacy and accuracy of fingerprints? Isn't there a growing concern regarding the use of such technology to track innocent citizens? Are we not debating the whole concept of national identification technologies?

Admittedly, Luminetx is way ahead of the curve on this technology, but can we afford to have such technology in place? What's the difference between this and a national ID card?

The technology is based on an infrared scan of the blood cells running through veins, which is then analyzed by a computer. Luminetx originally developed the technique as a way to help doctors and nurses find veins in patients needing injections. But now, through a new division called Snowflake Technologies, the company is marketing it to banks, credit card companies and even homeland-security officials as a high-tech biometric identification tool.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in the subpoena of database records and search engine usage patterns, the government under the current grab for unprecedented executive and police powers, this technology would be another avenue for invading the privacy of private citizens and yet another way for turning the technology--and those entities that might choose to use it--into another long arm of the law.

"Our vein structures are completely different, especially when you look at the palm," said Luminetx Chief Executive Officer Jim Phillips, speaking at The Entertainment Gathering conference here Wednesday. "In a way, it's like looking at a bar code. We convert your veins to a bar code."

Do we really want our veins to be converted to a bar code? Aren't we already content with out lives being reduced to a wide variety of account numbers? Do we now want even our anantomy reduced to a codified segment requiring binary or hexidecimal interpretation?

The drive for technology that can uniquely identify individuals has been given new urgency by the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks and the growing incidence of identity theft. Basic biometric tools such as fingerprinting and retinal scans are now being widely installed at airports and other transit points. Biometrics experts in the United States and Europe are trying to develop standards that can help unify a fast-changing industry.

It is this sense of urgency and the atmosphere of fear that has me concerned. Is there a need for such biometics measures at an everyday level? Shouldn't this type of technology be reserved to top secret installations and situations? Should this type of technology even be in the commercial domain outside of those corporations directly involved in producing secret military and intelligence products and services?

Some of the older tools have been found to be relatively easily bypassed, however. Researchers at Clarkson University have found that fingerprint scanners could be fooled with images lifted from Play-Doh, for example, or a model of a finger made with dental plaster. Reproducing a three-dimensional model of a human vein system, complete with blood, could be more difficult, however.

No security measure is foolproof. But there are security measures that can inadvertantly imprison the innocent, spy on the ordinary, and create levels of fear that produce a paranoia that is insatiable in its appetties for eating away our civil liberties.

Luminetx isn't the only group of researchers to pinpoint vein structure as a biometric breakthrough. Fujitsu is has already launched its own "Contactless Palm Vein Authentication" system and has sold more than 5,000 units in Japan. To date, Luminetx has focused sales of its $25,000 machines to hospitals. The medical tool uses the infrared scanner to detect veins up to half an inch under the skin, analyzes the data in real time with a Pentium 4 computer, and then projects a digital image back onto the skin. The resulting ghostly greenish image looks a little like a cartoon X-ray, showing the precise locations of veins under the skin.

None of these businesses would be interested in the technology if there wasn't a market for it. The fears created by terrorists--exaggerated and exacerbated by a paranoid administration--are holding our entire nation hostage and creating a market for all forms of secrecy, surveillance and identification technology. Our corporations have become fascist in their demands upon employees. One corporation now screens for drug and tobacco usage, and will fire an employee if any form of nicotine is found in the blood stream, even if it is from secondary smoke. Ford recently announced that Ford employees not driving Ford vehicles will not be allowed to park on Ford property. (Talk about a marketing plan!) Is this how we want to live in a free country?

The company was granted a patent for the biometric applications of the technology last September. Phillips said his company is still in the early stages of talking to financial and securities companies, and he would not talk about any negotiations taking place. He said he's sensitive to potential privacy concerns, but he believes the dangers of identity theft and other terrorism justify creating technology to help with the near-perfect identification of individuals.

When has any business or government entity really been sensitive to potential privacy concerns. I worked for a for-profit educational service company that monitored the use of the Internet, e-mails and all telephone conversations. The rational used was to assure that all employees were working efficiently and not using company resources to goof off. But the faculty was prevented from accessing web sites I used to research, prepare for classes, and answer student questions. Then, too, there were the pesky reporters asking for comments from faculty on how this particular company was defrauding the government (financial aid) and students (making promises and leaving them unfulfilled).

"We're moving into a lot of different areas of society," Phillips said. "That's exciting, but a little bit frightening."

Just a little frightening? The slippery slope that this type of technology offers is an outright assault on freedom and civil liberty. Wake up folks. We are becoming the world that Orwell warned us against... and it is being accomplished one brick at a time.