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Maine Sheriff's Department building kids iris database
Looks like the Penobscot County Sheriff's Department in Maine is the latest to get in the biometrics game, investing in an iris scanner and setting out to scan and record the vitals of all the children in the area. The department's not just freelancing here though, with each kid's biometric information being contributed to the nationwide Children's Identification and Location Database (or CHILD) project, intended to aid in locating and identifying missing children. While it has already scanned some 500 kids' eyes, the Sheriff's Department is now looking to speed up the process by bringing the technology into schools to register 'em all in one fell swoop. Of course, similar programs haven't always been met well by privacy-conscious parents in the past, but the department looks to be trying to accommodate any concerns by first sending home a permission slip with the students that parents must sign off on. While this scan is strictly a one time deal, at the rate various biometric systems are moving into schools, we somehow suspect that it won't be the last encounter the students have with the technology in the course of their edification.
