U.S. Army Scanning Eyeballs in Afghanistan - wants data on every Afghan citizen age 16 and up

[The Straight Story]

U.S. Army Scanning Eyeballs in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the American military is using handheld high-tech devices to scan the irises and record the fingerprints of Afghans to store in a database that allows soldiers to identify and capture insurgents.

The U.S. Army reportedly has gathered information on 800,000 people, using small portable equipment that contains a camera to scan eyes and an electronic pad to take fingerprints.

Afghanistan’s government has been getting into biometric ID gathering as well, storing info on 250,000 people so far. But American officials want President Hamid Karzai to get behind a more aggressive effort to collect biometric ID data on every Afghan citizen age 16 and up.

There is no linkage between the two databases, which limits the effectiveness of the operation. Some critics of the Karzai government worry about the risk of the biometric data being used for the wrong purposes.

http://www.allgov.com/US_and_the_World/ViewNews/US_Army_Scanning_Eyeballs_in_Afghanistan_101029

[RandomThoughts]

1. Ya think. LOL

[HopeHoops]

2. Minority Report was just a short-term prediction of things to come. We've had RFID for years.

Buy something in WalMart and whenever you wear it or bring it into the store, they've got it on file. If you paid by credit/debit card, they know your name. And that's just the RFID chips. Add iris scans to the mix and they own you.

[dgibby]

3. New passports are chipped, too, iirc. n/t

[HopeHoops]

4. Yeah, I saw that somewhere. Tires have been chipped for MANY years.

In theory, they could set up readers (up to 10' away) on the side of the road and track the distance between points, calculate the speed, cross-reference to the purchaser and then issue a ticket. I think that might be too much work so they're just using cameras to get license plates in conjunction with radar guns mounted on road signs.