Necessary Roughness

Drudge headlined a security update at Orlando International Airport: Iris Scanning. Today, it’s only for employees, but it may be coming soon to an airport near you. I wouldn’t be surprised if the scope were expanded to all travelers eventually.

“This will be an additional layer of information that is enrolled, which will be biometric information,” OIA director of security Brigitte Rivera Goersch said. “Employees irises will be enrolled for the additional layer of security.”

My first question is this: are we strapping down all terrorists and convicts on gurneys somewhere and scanning their irises? I would imagine not, so in this case only law abiding citizens get scanned.

If I have nothing to hide, what should I be scared about, right? Unfortunately, you have nothing to hide until someone with a grievance has write access to your data, or until someone can copy your data and use the copy. That’s not paranoia; that’s possible. Because it’s biometric data, which you can’t change unless you get your eyes surgically altered, once your information is in the public realm, you will have every law enforcement agency, here and internationally, wondering whether or not you were a good person today.

If someone is an Orlando Airport employee, their chance to be abused is exponentially greater than if the public at large were scanned, just because there are fewer of them for a malfeasant to pick from. That’s a nice incentive to quit.

Secondly, how do irises determine intent? Do they expand if they are planning an attack? Is this information going to be useful, or are we just collecting more information here in order for us to feel safer? Suppose an employee had plans to harm. If this has happened before, and it was correctly attributed to the right person, then sure, the iris machine would catch it. What about the first time? If he has one shot at causing harm, he’s going to make it a good one, will he not?