Imagine looking at a police officer for 5 seconds and then hearing him say your name.
Police officers in the USA now have technology which can register a person in seconds. BI2, a Massachusetts based company, has just released MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System), enabling a police officer to take an iris scan in seconds and, when attached to an iPhone, take a biometric facial scan with it.
MORIS can then run the image US criminal records. Each MORIS unit costs about $3,000.
Alongside the obvious problems in allowing a private company to manage government records, there is a worry that US police forces may be using the devices to randomly scan the population with the objective of identifying illegal immigrants and sex offenders.
Sean Mullin, BI2's CEO, says that it is difficult to capture an image of someone without their consent because the MORIS should be used at close-distance.
"It requires a level of cooperation that makes it very overt - a person knows that you're taking a picture for this purpose," Mullin said.
However the fact that MORIS can accurately scan faces from up to four feet away raises concerns that it should not be used before a police officer has established probable cause.
"What we don't want is for them to become a general surveillance tool, where the police start using them routinely on the general public, collecting biometric information on innocent people," said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C.
This is a clear threat to civil liberties in the USA. 1000 units have already been ordered by sheriffs and police departments across the USA.
It won't be long before it reaches the UK.
We need look no further than the recent cuts protests to see how the police react to public anger. On the March 26 the police promised activists occupying Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly that they would be granted safe exit without arrest. When the activists left, they were all photographed and arrested.
If the police were armed with MORIS, all those protestors would now have their iris scans on file.
In addition, any regulation of MORIS must contain clauses specific to protest contexts in order to preserve freedom of expression and prevent police officers randomly scanning protestors. This is even more essential given the recent government cuts.
BI2 is allowed to manage US government criminal records. The UK government must retain all authority over its criminal records.
The USA must move quickly to regulate MORIS. Upon doing so, it can set an example for the governments of MORIS' future export destinations.
This first appeared on Liberal Conspiracy.