When disaster strikes, the federal government and relief agencies often hand out lots of money to victims, to help them pay for food, shelter and relocation. But—as a Government Accounting Office study documented this week in the case of Hurricane Katrina relief—some scammers find ways to game the system, such as by getting money under a variety of fictitious names.
Researchers at Purdue University think that biometric technology could block much of that fraud. They’ve developed a system for recording pictures of the iris of the eyes of everyone who receives disaster relief. The images would be stored in a central database, and applicants would be checked against the database to be sure they haven’t already received money.
The researchers, who are working with an undisclosed manufacturer of biometric systems, are trying to drum up interest in the system from the Department of Homeland Security.
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