IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016 - 100

The variety of social and ethical
issues involved in IRTs is
considerable.
influence of some illegal drug, or to serve as evidence in support of a criminal investigation, if required.
Empirical evidence by Xianchao et al. [39] and Lagree
and Bowyer [40] suggests that ethnicity prediction and gender prediction are possible from iris textures. Some people
have secrets to hide, sometimes even their true ethnicity, to
avoid social isolation. Ahn [41], for example, reported that
many Korean-Japanese with Korean ethnic origin and Japanese nationality still try to hide their ethnicity and pretend to
be 100% Japanese because of the fear of discrimination and
insufficient academic support given by schools and teachers
to non-Japanese students, as is the case at present.
A large number of migrated individuals change their original names into names that can be easily integrated with their
new societies. Attempts to hide their ethnicity, for example, at
job interviews, with the potential future use of IRTs in work
environments can largely damage their efforts for integration.
There is a significant population who does not wish to disclose its gender. In a world where, someday, you can shop
using your iris-reader-enabled webcam instead of your credit
card, the potential for targeted marketing and customer profiling becomes more invasive than ever before.
Research by Larsson et al. [42] explored the associations
between personality and iris characteristics and found that
people with different iris configurations tend to develop
along different personality trajectories and that the characteristics of the iris are significantly associated with several
approach-related behaviors, including feelings, tender-mindedness, warmth, trust, positive emotions, and impulsiveness.
Although no other study has reinforced these results, the
implications are still profound. It opens the door to use iris
data as a future method for genetic personality research and
provide a tool to understand an individual's personality just
from an iris scan.
Another issue is that iris data can be analyzed for additional information, and there is no requirement that individuals will ever be notified. To illustrate, a bank using an IRT
enabled with an iris scanner can process the physiological
characteristics of a lady who performs an IRT transaction,
and the system denotes changes that are indicative that a
female customer is actually pregnant. Indeed, as previous
research has suggested, it might be possible to use an iris
scan to determine not only that a woman is pregnant but also
the gender of the unborn child [43], [44]. Haag and Cummings [44] provided an interesting example of how IRTs can
be used for smarter customer profiling in the future. Consider
the possibility that an IRT system derives a customer who is
expecting a baby girl and then proceeds to provide a pinkcolored printed receipt with an attached coupon for 10% off
100 IEEE ConsumEr ElECtronICs magazInE

JULY 2016

any purchase on girls' clothes at specific stores. The bank
might even go further to offer financing for a minivan, offer a
special second mortgage so a room for the baby can be
added, or establish a tuition account for the child. The point
here is that IRTs of the future will capture and process the
physiological characteristics of the person performing the
transaction and reveal information that the individual does
not know yet know about or does not want to know about.
Many parents choose not to test the gender for their unborn
child, and iris scanning has the potential to dramatically disrupt that natural process.
The analysis of the physiological characteristics can also
extend not only to pregnancy but may include, as stated previously, the presence of alcohol, illegal drugs, and even hair
loss, low blood sugar, and vitamin deficiencies [44]. It is
worrisome to think about governments and businesses using
such depth of analytics. The level of invasion into individuals' privacy will be remarkably unprecedented, especially
with the lack of policies and laws protecting iris information
today and most of other biometrics information, both in the
public and private sectors [11].

coNcLuSioN
Biometrics, specifically iris recognition, is gaining much interest today from governments and businesses, mainly for security
enforcement and intelligent customer profiling. In this article,
we touched upon the concepts of biometrics that are based on
the unique physiological features and behavioral patterns of the
human body, explained the iris and its unparalleled characteristics that single it out from other biometrics, and presented a
range of applications where IRTs were successfully utilized
worldwide. We then started a discussion about the social implications of IRTs in relation to privacy, iris recognition failure,
and concerns related to the ability of these technologies to
reveal information, from the iris data of an individual, that is
beyond the purposes of security and profiling, such as predicting pregnancy, gender, ethnicity, personality, alcohol and other
substance consumption, and medical information, such as low
blood sugar and vitamin deficiencies,
The variety of social and ethical issues involved in IRTs is
considerable. It is imperative that the use of IRTs always
adhere to strict policies and guidelines that ensure the ethical
conduct of the people who can access such technologies and
its related stored data.
One of the guidelines, as Alterman [21] correctly argued,
is based on the fact that the ethics of biometrics, including
the iris, cannot rest on the assumption that its related data
are absolutely secure. Threats to privacy in the form of
uncontrolled collection of personal data and unauthorized
access to personal information are all possible with iris data
as with any other. Privacy policies should be in place and
publically posted and clearly state when, how, and why iris
information is collected and used. Limited access points and
high encryption security measures should be implemented to
audit official access to iris data and totally eliminate those
that are unofficial.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine - July 2016