Dubai’s airport is the world’s busiest for international travel. Its artificial palm trees, gleaming terminals, water cascades, and near-Arctic levels of air conditioning often feel surreal. Now, the transit hub is rolling out another science fiction-like addition: an iris-scanner that proves identity and eliminates the need for human interaction when entering or leaving the country.
Iris scans require people to stare into a camera as though they’re offering a fingerprint. The scans have become more widespread worldwide in recent years as questions have arisen over the accuracy of facial recognition technology. Iris biometrics are considered more reliable than surveillance cameras. That equipment scans people’s faces from a distance without their knowledge, cooperation, or consent.
Dubai’s airport started offering the iris-scanning program to all passengers last month. On Sunday, travelers stepped up to an iris scanner after checking in, gave it a good look, and breezed through passport control within seconds. No paper tickets or unwieldy phone apps!
Experts say the United Arab Emirates already has one of the highest concentrations of surveillance cameras in the world. And the country’s vast facial recognition network only shows signs of expanding.
During the pandemic, Dubai unveiled an array of tech tools to fight the virus, including disinfectant foggers, thermal cameras, and face scans that check for masks and take temperatures. The programs similarly use cameras that can record and upload people’s data, potentially feeding the information into the city-state’s wider biometric databases.
Iris scanners are the latest artificial intelligence program launched amid the coronavirus pandemic. The UAE government is promoting the contactless technology as helping to stem virus spread. But the efforts have also renewed questions about mass surveillance in the alliance of seven sheikhdoms.
In recent years, airports across the world have accelerated use of timesaving facial recognition technology to move passengers to their flights. But Dubai’s new scan connects the iris data to the country’s facial recognition databases so that a passenger needs no identifying documents or boarding pass.
“The future is coming,” says Major General Obaid Mehayer Bin Suroor. “Now, all the procedures have become ‘smart,’ around five to six seconds.”
The Emirates’ biometric privacy statement says the airline links passengers’ faces with other personally identifying data, including passport and flight information. The airline will retain it for “as long as it is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.”
The agreement offers few details about how the data will be used and stored. It does say that the company doesn’t make copies of passengers’ faces—but other personal data “can be processed in other Emirates’ systems.”
Bin Suroor stresses that Dubai’s immigration office “completely protects” passengers’ personal data so that “no third party can see it.”
Like all facial recognition technology, the new UAE program adds to fears of vanishing privacy in the country, which has faced international criticism for targeting journalists and human rights activists. Experts say without more information about how personal data will be used or stored, biometric technology raises the possibility of misuse.
(A woman enters the face and iris-recognition gate to board a plane at Dubai Airport, in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, March 7, 2021. AP/Kamran Jebreili)
