Video: Identification technology helps boost law enforcement
It's mobile, wireless and fits in your hand, and when law enforcement wants to identify a registered sex offender or a formerly missing person, it's a tool like nothing else.
The Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, was developed and patented by BI2 Technologies, or Biometric Intelligence & Identification Technologies of Manomet, Mass. And it has implications beyond law enforcement.
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Sean Mullin, president and chief executive officer of BI2 Technologies, doesn't hesitate to demonstrate the latest in iris biometric technology that provides positive identification in seconds and represents a dramatic improvement in what law enforcement can do.
"The hand-held is where the magic is now," he said.
Sheriff Greg Solano of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department in New Mexico can't wait to get the new portable system. For the past year his department has been using the company's Sex Offender Registry and Identification System (SORIS) technology to track sex offenders and more recently to create a database of everyone who's booked on any crime.
While it can take anywhere from two to six weeks to get fingerprints identified, Solano said the department can determine immediately who the person is using SORIS, even if they lie about who they are or have been booked before under a different name.
"We really are very impressed with it," he said.
Mullin said it's the iris, the part of the eye around the pupil, that the technology scans. It's a technology that's less than 20 years old. The new portable technology that BI2 Technologies has developed is about a month old.
"The iris contains more descriptive biometric data than any other accessible part of your body," he said. "Each eye contains about 235 unique features."
The patent pending for MORIS applies to the sleeve or case with a small camera that law enforcement officers can attach to an iPhone and clip to their belt. The first version of MORIS works with iPhones, but it will also be able to work with Smart phones and similar devices.
In the first six months of life, the iris continues to develop, but after six months the iris does not change and the technology can be applied. It doesn't matter if a person wears contact lenses or develops cataracts or any other disease of the eye. If a person is drunk, the camera follows the eye and will focus in seconds. Seen through a lens, Mullin said, the eye looks like a beautiful sunflower through a kaleidoscope.
The iris scan technology has nothing to do with DNA, Mullin said. It takes a digital photograph of the eye that in just seconds gets recorded in a small data file. It's faster and more accurate than any other known biometrics.
"It is significantly more accurate than fingerprints, more than any other biometric, and it's very unobtrusive," he said. "It will change everything the way two-way radios did."
The downside, Mullin said, is that the scan cannot be used as evidence during a forensic investigation or subsequent court case because you can't leave it at a crime scene as you can a fingerprint.
"It can't be used as evidence whatsoever," he said. "What it's perfect for is positively identifying you very quickly."
Before a law enforcement officer can use MORIS to determine who a person is, Mullin said the officer must have probable cause.
Four basic systems employ the technology. SORIS identifies registered sex offenders in seconds. Mullin said sex offenders statistically re-offend at a high rate. MORIS can be used to check whether registered sex offender live at the address at which they are registered.
"They have a staggering recidivism rate," he said. "It's mind boggling how many times these folks who commit sex crimes offend again."
MORIS includes access to SORIS and IRIS, the Inmate Recognition & Identification System used by sheriff's departments to confirm the identities of inmates before their release.
The Plymouth County Sheriff's Department in Massachusetts employs IRIS to identify inmates before they are released from the Plymouth County House of Correction. Public Affairs Director John Birtwell said it's the last step in the discharge process. The House of Correction in Plymouth, Mass., can hold 1,600 inmates.
"We use the technology in the facility itself to make sure that a prisoner at the time of release really is the same person who is on the paperwork," he said.
Birtwell said the iris scanning technology is essentially foolproof and is also consumer-friendly. He said the department hopes to be considered when it's time for BI2 Technologies to begin offering MORIS nationwide.
"It provides easily accessible and definitive information," he said. "An iris recognition is hundreds of thousands of times more accurate and more easily accessed than a fingerprint. It can't be fooled."
Birtwell said it's amazing to think about the possibilities for using the handheld scanners in the field, including use by warrant officers.
"It has amazing capacity," he said.