Pubs in Chicago: The Future of Biometrics

pubs in Chicago

The next time you're enjoying beers at pubs in Chicago, be glad you're not 'down under' in Australia. Pubs and nightclubs in Australia have been scanning driver's licenses while simultaneously taking photos as patrons enter establishments. The information is stored on Australia's largest biometric database, idEYE.

Violence and crime has dropped significantly in pubs due to the system. Troublemakers are flagged on the database. When they try to enter different pubs on the shared database, they are denied entry. The length of the ban varies according to individual establishments and the nature of the offense. The ID and photo data is encrypted and stored on secure servers.

Databases are not subject to governmental regulations. Biometrics in Australia is not covered by privacy laws. Vendors offering the service have complete control over information stored in their database. Everyone entering a pub or nightclub using this system has information stored on the idEYE.

The national database can be adjusted to fit a particular pub or nightclub's needs. The system can be configured to use facial recognition, optical character recognition or fingerprint scans. Although customers are divided on the need to give up biometric data to buy a beer, alcoholic related incidences in pubs in Chicago have dropped up to 80%.

According to biometrics.org, "Biometrics is automated methods of recognizing a person based on physiological or behavioral characteristics. Among the features measured are face, fingerprints, hand geometry, handwriting, iris, retinal vein and voice. Biometric technologies are becoming the foundation of an extensive array of highly secure identification and personal verification solutions. As the level of security breaches and transaction fraud increases, the need for highly secure identification and personal verification technologies is becoming apparent."

The impetus for increasing use of biometrics is coming from the biometric industry and the financial industry. The military is also finding uses for remote, "Biometrics-at-a-distance." The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), established in 1958, is looking to build sensors that can remotely identify humans from farther away and distinguish them in a crowd. The technology already exists for using radar waves to detect respiration through walls. Technology also exists which can use Doppler radar to find heartbeats. Some of the Pentagon's devices can see through eight inches of concrete.

The goal is to find specific humans hiding in a crowd. Your heartbeat is a unique biometric identifier.

The future of biometrics will soon be no further away than the cell phone or iPhone you're holding in your hand. Technology is rapidly approaching the time when the hardware and software for fingerprint scanning devices will be embedded in wireless handheld devices.