IN ONE OF THOSE STRANGE coincidences that makes our little universe that more interesting, nikkei.net has an interesting article about fingerprinting frauds today, that might well bamboozle Spanish firm BAA, which wants to fingerprint us all so it can extend its shopping franchise.
Nikkei.net, for it is they, ran a story about how NT&T can detect “fake fingerprints”. You wouldn’t Adam and Eve it, but fingerprints can be reproduced on gelatine and presented to computers and authorities as verification of a person’s identity. This has been a problem for some years. Japanese boffs have developed systems that recognise “veins” that contain real blood, as well as the familiar whorls and coils on fingers and presumably fake fingers too.
The major problem, according to Nikkei, is “distinguishing a real finger from a fake one made of silicon or gelatin.”
Boffins at NT&T have come up with a fingerprint recognition device that detects if there is an electrical current behind the “fake fingers”. It’s just occurred to us. Maybe BAA could authorise a fingerprint scanner at Terminal Five which not only reads fingers, but analyses the sweat on fingers and creates a “temporary DNA record” which can then be transferred to a Harrods Loyalty Card.
Nikkei is here, but you gotta pay to read it. ♥
