Singapore may soon make you scan your eyes to enter

SINGAPORE is stepping up security at its land borders by trialing scanning travelers’ eyes, according to the island city-state’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).

“The trials will help us in our consideration of whether and how we should implement such technology at our checkpoints,” Today quoted ICA as saying. The ICA has been collecting iris images from Singaporeans and permanent residents when they apply for id#entity cards or a passport since January last year.

What are eye scans?

It uses iris-scanning technology, which is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual’s eyes.

Each individual’s iris has complex patterns are unique, stable, and can be seen from some distance, which makes them harder to replicate than fingerprints.

Thus, eye scans are a more effective biometric identification tool and is currently being used in other countries like the US and the UK.

Source: Shutterstock.

This year alone, Singapore has unleashed a series of high-tech initiatives.

In April, its government announced plans to turn on facial recognition technology for over 100,000 lampposts to help authorities pick out and recognize faces in crowds across the country.

Dubbed “Lamppost-as-a-Platform,” the project is part of Singapore’s “Smart Nation” plan to use cutting-edge technology to improve people’s lives.

A month later, Changi Airport said it was testing facial recognition systems which can track the whereabouts of late passengers.

The proposed facial recognition cameras will be plonked on top of lampposts around the terminals.

Source: Shutterstock.

The wealthy island-state has a near-perfect record of keeping its shores free from terror but has said that it has been a target of Islamic extremism since the 1990s.

As the threat of militancy in the region has ratcheted up, Singapore found the need to improve efficiency and security by rolling out high-tech initiatives.

Although the initiatives were at first met with privacy concerns and comments about “Big Brother-style surveillance“, the Singaporean government has pledged to be sensitive to privacy, adding that the measures are pragmatic ways to improve people’s lives.

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Source: travelwireasia.com