Would You Share Your Retina Online?

By leelefever on January 27, 2007 - 6:48pm.

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Robin Hamman just got new glasses and at the same time, had high-res digital scans of his retinas...

Today, about a month later, I've finally received an email with those images attached and they're really beautiful. Not just because they contain a view of my own eyes that I've never been able to see before or, indeed, because my eyes are in any way particularly lovely or different from the next person's. But from a "isn't biology wonderful" and "hey, check this out" perspective, I'd love the post the photos here and/or on flickr.

The question is, should I?

According to BiometricNewsPortal, retina scans have an error rate of one in 10 million in comparison to fingerprinting which can result in an error rate as bad as 1 in 500. The site also says that:

"retina biometrics systems are suited for environments requiring maximum security, such as Government, military and banking. Retina biometric systems have been in use for military applications since the early seventies..."

...I'm thinking that, as cool as those retinal images might be, it could very well be a bad idea to post them online. In fact, I should probably be emailing the optician to request that they delete the images.

I can't say I've ever thought about such a thing, but I think Robin has a point. As much as I share online, I think something like a retinal scan could be a risk that could come back to bite you in the future.