Comment Articles

Watching the defectives

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 07 Nov 2001 17:09 GMT

Another piece of surveillance technology rolled into view this week. On the face of it, the EntréPad fingerprint sensor is a good thing -- a single chip device that reads fingerprints without messing with optical lenses, light sources and so on. Put it on a surface, dab your digit on the top and the chip scans it with radio waves. It shouldn't cost much more to make than any other chip, and takes so little power it can piggyback on cellphones and PDAs without chewing batteries.

If you, like many friends of mine, have been the victim of credit card cloning, then the idea of a universal, cheap fingerprint ID system seems fantastic news. Your bank card is just a machine-readable account number and expiry date: the only security is your PIN or your signature and even these aren't checked for low value transactions. Anyone who can get hold of your card, or even your number, can make copies and take your money. However, add the requirement for a guaranteed fingerprint, fed in from your phone or organiser or via a chip on a terminal, and security goes from ridiculously lax to effectively foolproof.

It gets better, if the fingerprint detector is part of a proper validated security chain. You can forget all that user ID and password stuff on all those online accounts; you can't be locked out of your house or car; you can even start to see the end of any number of official documents. Why have a driving licence if a car won't start without a fingerprint that comes back good from the radio link to the licensing authority's computer?

There's just one drawback. Because the EntréPad uses radio, it can go through small amounts of plastic -- in other words, it can be mounted invisibly beneath a surface. Put one in the keypad of a public access Net terminal, or in the handle of a door in a public place, and people could be scanned for fingerprints without them even knowing it. In a country where there are surveillance cameras connected to face recognition software, there'll clearly be no official resistance to this idea.