Singapore To Record Iris Scans Of Citizens

[HardOCP News]

Uh oh, Minority Report here we come. What's weird is that they plan on using this in conjunction with fingerprints and photographs, not instead of. Seems a bit excessive for regular ID cards and passports.

Starting January 1 next year, Singapore will begin including iris scans as part of the country's registration process for citizens and permanent residents. This was part of efforts to improve the "effectiveness and efficiency" of operations undertaken by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement Wednesday.

 

[p.i.m.p]

i see people loosing an eye over this

 

[amddragonpc]

As long as the right people get caned, right?

 

[tunatime]

Google proboly already has them on file somewhere form all the sefles people take

 

[Ducman69]

Its mostly about religion and haves vs have-nots.

Singapore is a highly population dense mostly Chinese heritage mega-city, with both poor and very wealthy citizens. Furthermore, they have a 15% Muslim minority that they have always kept under tight wraps, as well as relying heavily on their poor Muslim neighbors to the North for cheap day-labor in Malaysia which they have always seen as a vulnerability to watch out for.

That's why Singapore has always been so big on surveillance, zero tolerance for civil disobedience, and its illegal to have a gathering of more than four people without a government permit, as its to keep the plebs, in particular the Muslim plebs and foreign Muslim laborers from organizing and inciting violence.

With the spread of militant Islamism around the globe, they likely have heightened fear particularly from the Malaysians that flow in large numbers across the border, and so are implementing this. And before you hate on them for that, consider that the Buddhist Thai are under constant attack from Muslims from Northern Malaysian jihadis with the deathtoll now at approximately 6,500 with 12K injured Thai in the last ten years alone (and usually soft targets like blowing up schools no less).

Singapore may not be particularly politically correct with their harsh laws, but their random arrests of anyone even remotely suspected or having loose connections with jihadists has resulted in zero attacks to date.

And having lived there, as long as you're an upstanding citizen, there's no police corruption and its extremely clean and safe which is very nice.

 

[lcpiper]

Are they still using Gurkas to augment their security forces?


As for the combination of Iris Scans, Fingerprinting, and Photo Recognition being overkill, it is not.

Iris Scans are the most accurate of the three but the most difficult to capture and generally take the longest time to search for from databases. You can speed up the Iris Scan search by first doing a fast pre-selection from a facial recognition search. ie .... I can do a long time consuming search for Iris alone, or I can capture faces while people are waiting in line to establish a smaller search pool before doing the Iris Scan search greatly speaking up the process. And, when I was doing this work in Iraq, I wish I could "lift" an iris image from a discarded weapon or explosives, but it seems that we just couldn't get the enemy to press their eyeballs against these objects reliably and had to suffer with accepting fingerprints for forensic work. And lastly, Singapore isn't the only country collecting biometrics for identification purposes and not everyone is collecting Iris data so you need a database capability for what others might send or for when you have to ID a man with no eyes, or when someone is just too lazy to collect everything and only grabs the index or thumb from each hand, or for when the Iris Scanner is just not working properly and you have to settle for what you can get.

Just some of the realities involved.

And the thing that was really freaky to me about Minority Report wasn't the ID technology and how it was used. Face it, we are already living this now. It was the precrime / precog program and the idea of arresting and trying people for crimes that have not yet been committed.

 

[Master_shake_]

i see people loosing an eye over this

or an "o"

 

[Ducman69]

Are they still using Gurkas to augment their security forces?

Not sure, but they have dudes that train on Mt Kinabalu. We were hiking to the summit, about to die step by step, and these Singapore military dudes with thunder calves are practically sprinting up the mountain past us.

Singapore is tiny, but they can definitely defend their shipping lanes against pirates and armed smugglers with top notch green water ships.

And the thing that was really freaky to me about Minority Report wasn't the ID technology and how it was used. Face it, we are already living this now. It was the precrime / precog program and the idea of arresting and trying people for crimes that have not yet been committed.

If you can collect enough information, a pre-crime unit is something that could realistically exist to identify high risk individuals.

After all, you put an egg on a sloped desk, you kind of already know whats going to happen if you let go, and don't have to wait for it to roll down the table, and splat on the floor. These days with terrorists that can inflict massive casualties in planned attacks, that kind of "pre-crime" information gathering is really kind of a must.

Singapore actually just recently did just that, and deported 26 expats suspected of supporting ISIS.

 

[lcpiper]

Not sure, but they have dudes that train on Mt Kinabalu. We were hiking to the summit, about to die step by step, and these Singapore military dudes with thunder calves are practically sprinting up the mountain past us.

Singapore is tiny, but they can definitely defend their shipping lanes against pirates and armed smugglers with top notch green water ships.

If you can collect enough information, a pre-crime unit is something that could realistically exist to identify high risk individuals.

After all, you put an egg on a sloped desk, you kind of already know whats going to happen if you let go, and don't have to wait for it to roll down the table, and splat on the floor. These days with terrorists that can inflict massive casualties in planned attacks, that kind of "pre-crime" information gathering is really kind of a must.

Singapore actually just recently did just that, and deported 26 expats suspected of supporting ISIS.

Gurkhas are pretty easy to spot, first, they are from Nepal, second they always have their trademark knives with them, even when others are not allowed any weapons at all.

The Gurkhas are a Nepalese trademark and heritage. They are formed in Regiments, each Regiment is family/clan based. They are professional mercenaries who historically have only served England and India and much more recently Singapore. These guys are the purest form of an honorable soldier for hire and should be respected for what they are and represent. It's like Samurai without the stupid shit and they are not simply guns for hire. They won't do bullshit jobs for money and they don't fail to do what they are hired to do. Very proud and for good reason. In Nepal, these are well thought of people. I also think they are Nepal's biggest export.

Singapore Gurkha Contingent
The Gurkha Contingent (GC) of the Singapore Police Force was formed on 9 April 1949 from selected ex-British Army Gurkhas. It is an integral part of the Police Force and was raised to replace a Sikh unit which had existed prior to the Japanese occupation during the Second World War.[52]

The GC is a well trained, dedicated and disciplined body whose principal role is as riot police. In times of crisis it can be deployed as a reaction force. During the turbulent years before and after independence, the GC acquitted itself well on several occasions during outbreaks of civil disorder. The Gurkhas displayed the courage, self-restraint and professionalism for which they are famous and earned the respect of the society at large.[52]

Recently the GC can be seen patrolling the streets and have replaced local policemen to guard key installations. The most recent deployment of the GC was to provide additional security for the Singapore Airshow, Asia's largest airshow, and the hunt for the escaped terrorist, Mas Selamat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha

And I will admit right off the start, some of what I wrote up top might be more romantic myth than real

 

[HeavensCloud]

Minority Report here we come.