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January 26, 2005

Bits vs Atoms 2.0: Cassius, ePassports, and 1hr photo shop

My beautiful, adorable and incredibly intelligent boxer-x-rottweiler, Cassius, filled my life with such joy while he was around (he took on a micro-bus in 2001 and lost). He was also one of the first RFID-chipped animals I knew of, having a tiny ID chip injected into his shoulder years ago. This was to help identify him in case he went missing/got dog-knapped and lost his collar.

Being an early-adopter canine, Cassius highlighted for me early on the potential with RFID (radio-frequency identity) chips and smart-cards.

Recently I got thinking about this area again and what it could mean for business as usual.

The USA is offering incentives to frequent travellers to that country to move to a biometric-based visa system. In time, most countries will require visitors to have biometric id's.

Biometric smart-cards work is this way:

-A template is created of your biometric data, whether it be your face, retina or hand/fingerprint.
-This data is then stored on the chip on the card in a highly encrypted format.
-The card is also encoded with certain rights/permissions, as in access to a building, or country, in the case of a visa.
-The card-holder's identity is confirmed by a biometric reader, which then compares the (live) data to the chip template.
-If the two match, and the access rights are ok, then all is well.

Ok, now getting the template created in the first place needs to be made as easy for consumers as possible, in the case of travellers. I foresee a situation where certain biometric template providers will be licensed to supply this service, according to various standards.

Today, when we need visa or passports photos for travel purposes, one generally goes to the local 1hr photo shop. Smile, snap, snip, and there's your photo. EXTENDING this to the biometric-based future, it makes for these same photo-agencies to invest in this capacity or knowledge area and tap into existing consumer behaviour.

What do photos and biometric templates have to do with each other?
Nothing at the moment, but history is replete with examples of industries that anticipated potential futures and aligned accordingly, as well as wrecks on progress' highway of businesses that didn't sense the future. Those in the atom business (photo labs) need to understand the implications and extensions of a bit-based world.

Posted by sdehaast at January 26, 2005 3:53 PM Posted to food for thought