In an age where invasion of privacy and 24/7 location tracking is an everyday occurrence, what’s stopping the authorities from wanting to own your retinal data?
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) now wants to take control of your eyeballs to “strengthen verification methods”, according to The National Registration (Amendment) Bill 2016 introduced in Parliament yesterday. As in they’re seeking for the right to collect images of your irises as an additional element in identifying you.
Photographs and fingerprints as personal identifiers are good and all, but being all Minority Report about it is even better, proposed the MHA. The proposed amendments to the bill will allow the Immigrations & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) to collect iris images from Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents as additional identifiers.
This could mean the installation of retinal scanners at checkpoints for “more effective and efficient clearance”. Tom Cruise would disagree.
Other amendments proposed include the appointment of non-ICA officers as registration officers (to collect images of your eyeballs), giving ICA officers investigative powers, and — weirdly enough — the power to refuse offensive, confusing or misleading names. Alas, this could spell the end to future Batman Bin Suparmans.
