Patent for ‘Minority Report’ Public Iris Scanning

Slashdot is running a story today sourced from Live Science on the patent application of an Iris Scanning technology that could see large scale deployment in the future for advertising and tracking purposes. For anyone who has seen The Minority Report, this will be a familiar scenario.

From the patent application:

“…a system for obtaining iris biometric information includes an array of cameras defining an image capture volume for capturing an image of an iris; and an image processor, coupled to the array of cameras, for determining at least one suitable iris image for processing from the images generated for the image capture volume … A subject within the capture volume is repeatedly imaged to produce a plurality of images of the subject. The plurality of images are processed to extract at least one clear image of the subject’s iris.”

The usual, and agreeable, Slashdot sceptism can be found on the articles comments page