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Smelling out wrongdoers will put the law ahead by a nose |
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Biometrics
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Written by Peter Warren
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Wednesday, 02 June 2004 |
Jason Burke and Peter Warren
Sunday December 28, 2003
The Observer
Farewell to black gloves, swag bags and crowbars. Deodorants will soon be the burglar's preferred tool.
Government scientists are evaluating new technology that allows people
to be identified by body odour, making the tracing of criminals by
their unique whiff, whether of fear, greed or excitement, a possibility
within years.
A leaked memo from the Government's top-secret GCHQ centre lists a
series of 'biometric technologies' that have been tested by government
specialists for possible use in the UK. The list includes one 'esoteric
proposal' to identify individuals by their smell.
Biometric technologies, which effectively use the body itself as a
password, are increasingly popular. New security concerns over
terrorism and illegal international immigration have accelerated the
search for more effective ways to pinpoint individuals in a hi-tech
world. Recent reports from the Department of Trade and Industry and law
enforcement authorities in America have listed 'identity theft' as the
fastest-growing type of crime and have highlighted 'biometrics' as a
way to stay ahead of the thieves.
Yet such technologies also have a whole variety of 'civilian'
applications and could soon be a part of our everyday lives. Cars
fitted with the right equipment could identify certain drivers by their
smell and refuse to start for people they do not recognise. Computers
could fail to boot up unless a user's own pong matched that programmed
into a sensor.
The leaked memo, Security Enforcement Notice 03/04, was compiled two
months ago by the Communications Electronics and Security Group at
GCHQ, the government spy centre. It describes a series of 'commonly
used' technologies, including 'face recognition' as well as the
analysis of hand and finger geometry, voices and eyes, as 'under
research'. Gait, retina patterns and ear-shape are also being looked
at, the memo says.
'Body odour' and 'skull resonance' - by which sound waves are passed
through a head to produce a unique sonar profile - are also listed as
possibilities. Government sources confirmed this weekend that both had
been 'evaluated' as part of an investigation of biometric identity
systems.
Biometrics are nothing new, with fingerprints being used for over 100
years as a form of identification. One modern technology under
development analyses 'keyboard dynamics' - an individual's typing speed
and repertoire of mistakes.
But smell is seen by security experts as having great potential. Every
person produces an odour with a different chemical formula. And we all
smell all the time, even if the smell is not detectable by the
untrained nose.
Our odour is largely produced by the bacteria on our skin and our
pheromones, the chemical we produce to signal to others of the same
species. The great advantage for law enforcement is that, however hard
we scrub or cover ourselves in deodorant, we cannot entirely obscure
our own 'sniff signature'.
Various identification techniques using body odour have been evaluated
by government experts, security sources told The Observer. Most depend
on users holding the palm of their hand against a sensor that can
recognise their unique and complex scent once it has been broken down
into a complex algorithm. Once someone's body odour has been
registered, it could be entered on a card, such as a credit or identity
card, or on a document such as a passport.
'It may sound completely ridiculous, but it's a fantastic way of
identifying people. It's almost impossible to fake or duplicate
someone's own personal pong. It's certainly a lot more efficient than
everyone trying to remember dozens of PIN numbers,' said one private
security expert. 'And no one is going to force you at knife-point to
divulge the secrets of your body odour to let them withdraw money from
your cashpoint or drive your car off.'
Qinetiq, the technology research company that was formerly a government
agency, confirmed to The Observer that it has an expert who deals with
the degradation of human bacterial cell culture on the skin.
Some security experts anticipate the technology will develop
sufficiently to allow police to identify an individual in a large crowd
purely on their scent.
Biometrics are at the heart of a new plan by the Government to
introduce a nationwide identity card. David Blunkett, the Home
Secretary, has said that he wants to introduce a card, possibly based
on technology that scans people's irises, as a key part of a £3 billion
plan to combat terrorism, immigration and benefit fraud. A pilot
scheme, which starts next month, will involve 10,000 volunteers
receiving personalised smartcards containing biometric information -
initially a digital image of their faces based on a passport
photograph.
The Passport Agency is struggling to meet tough new requirements in new
US anti-terrorist legislation which will require all visitors to the US
who do not have a visa to have a biometric in their passport. Three
options are being tested for use within years: iris, face and
fingerprint recognition.The use of iris patterns or fingerprints on ID
cards, says the Home Secretary, 'will make identity theft and multiple
identity impossible - not nearly impossible, impossible.'
However, the memo advises government departments not to use the
technology for their own internal use in checking and identifying their
own staff, because of doubts over its efficiency, and government
advisers are privately saying that it would be best to wait for at
least three years for biometric technology to 'mature' . The rush to
introduce unproven biometric technologies has angered some MPs.
Mark Oaten, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said that the Home
Office had 'put the cart before the horse in pretending that it can
build a £3bn system on the back of technology which is still in
development'.
All biometrics, however, remain controversial with civil liberties
groups unhappy about 'Big Brother' aspects of mass storage of
identifying information.
Attempts to build a database of the population's smells would be
fiercely opposed, not least by the people whose job it was to go around
the nation compiling it.
'It's not exactly the world's most glamorous job,' said one scientist
last week. 'You'd spend years of your life working out how we all
whiff.'
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