Sheriff will identify people with a retinal scan

El Paso County Sheriff's Office will identify people not by fingerprints or DNA, but with a retinal scan.

The National Sheriffs' Association has awarded the El Paso County Sheriff's Office a grant of $10,000 to be among the first 45 law enforcement agencies in the nation to use retinal scanning to identify people.

The grant provides, at no cost to the taxpayers of El Paso County, an iris biometric system that is part of a nationwide network and registry that uses iris recognition biometric technology to confirm a person’s identity.

It includes The Child Project, Senior Safety Net, Inmate Recognition and Identification System (I.R.I.S.) and Sex Offender Registry and Identification System (SORIS) systems.

The technology, called biometrics, uses a high-resolution digital camera to take a photograph of a person's eye. The scanning technology uses 235 unique identifying points to instantly determine the identity of a person, who could be a jail inmate, a lost elderly person or a missing child, said Peter Flynn, retired Sheriff of Plymouth County, Massachusetts and a co-founder of The Child Project and BI2 Technologies.

"An eye forms its own patent, and that's what we're taking a picture of -- the patent of that eye," he said. "There are no two irises in the world alike."

The system enables law enforcement agencies to enroll, identify and locate missing children and adults through the use of iris recognition biometric technology.

Sheriff Flynn continued, “the Child Project and related iris biometric systems the El Paso County Sheriff's Office is receiving is part a secure nationwide network and registry that enables law enforcement and social service agencies to enroll, locate and positively identify missing children and adults with iris biometric recognition technology. Through this network, The Child Project compares the unique features contained in the iris against a database of individuals who voluntarily enroll throughout the country to determine identity. Participation is entirely voluntary, just as it is now with fingerprint and photo ID card programs.”

Retinal scanning is 12 times as accurate as fingerprinting and does not produce false identifications, he further said.

Sheriff Richard Wiles said that the retinal scanning device would first be used to identify jail inmates and others. In coming years, he said, retinal scanners could be placed in patrol cars so that officers could identify suspects and other people in the field.

"This is really the future in law enforcement. This technology is going to help us move forward," Wiles said. "This will help reduce the potential for taking the wrong individual into custody and things like that."

The new technology will also enable the El Paso County Sheriff's Office to better identify, register and track inmates and convicted sex offenders.