Recently, at a manufacturer’s media event, I learned about an emerging technology called CFAIRS (pronounced “sea-fairs,” it stands for combined face and iris recognition) that can scan irises of people anywhere in a room without them knowing they’re being scanned. The technology works by “finding” a person’s face, scanning the irises and then comparing the scan with a database. The manufacturer’s representatives said that one of the first applications of the product will be casinos, where the product will be used to identify known gambling addicts or previously identified cheaters. Some casinos will probably even use it to identify their high-rollers so that they can monitor their activities without the high-rollers knowing they are being watched.

The manufacturer offered two justifications to combat objections to the technology, which will no-doubt scare the bejesus out of folks already worried about their privacy. First, they say, people don’t realize how often they’re on camera in any given day anyway – some estimates put the number as high as 20 to 25 times a day. It’s the “new world order” and people should just learn to live with it. Secondly, the way the technology is intended to be used is that when it create a “profile” of a person it scans, it creates a dummy name like “Person 123” and compares it to a database where the type of people security personnel are hoping to find (like cheaters) are also stored by dummy names. So security personnel don’t actually know any personal information about the people being scanned (except that he or she is a known cheater), which, supposedly, protects privacy.

But the rebuttals for both those arguments seem easy: First, this technology is far beyond the run-of-the-mill surveillance cameras. It’s actually capturing, and possibly saving, a piece of unique biometric data (the iris scan). Secondly, it’s not hard to imagine that soon that data WILL be compared to a database with actual names, contact information, (and, thinking Big Brother here), credit card information, how much money you have in the bank, your favorite sports teams, your last amazon.com order, number of vacation days spent, etc.

At some level, this debate over security vs. privacy, and the new technologies that are bringing this debate to the forefront are functions of the increasing ferocity of the culture wars in general. However, whichever side of the aisle you are on, the one thing everyone can agree on is that this debate isn’t going away anytime soon – and new privacy legislation is being introduced every day, seemingly, to try to catch the United States up with Europe and other places in the world in terms of privacy laws. It’s a critical issue for facility executives to consider as they’re also thinking about how to make facilities secure without forcing people to jump through hoops – literally or figuratively. None of this is easily solved and there are strong opinions on each side. I’d be interested to hear yours - what do you think?