The boss of the AI tool ChatGPT has revealed that his eyeball-scanning orbs are coming to the US, as questions still swirl around this dystopian step into the future. Sam Altman announced Wednesday that the identity verification technology will now be available in six cities - Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. The expansion into the US is all part of Altman's plan to create a new global identity and financial network. Currently, Altman's cryptocurrency company World has rolled out the orb devices in more than 35 cities across over 20 countries worldwide. The main purpose of these eyeball scanners is to verify that each user is a'unique human,' not a bot or duplicate account.

With the Taliban having now taken over Afghanistan, there are growing concerns about how it might use the data from the huge biometrics programme that has been left behind. An extensive database of people in Afghanistan was built up during the previous regime, but the quick transition has meant much of it remains in tact. The US first established a programme to collect the fingerprints, iris scans and facial images of Afghan national security forces after testing prototypes of the system in 2002. The programme's initial goal was to keep criminals and Taliban insurgents from infiltrating the army and police force. To collect and store this data, the US Department of Defense launched its Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) in 2004.

Some of the most powerful investors in Silicon Valley want to scan your eyeball. You almost certainly shouldn't let them. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffmann, and major venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz are all backing a recently revealed plan by a company called Worldcoin, which mashes up three big ideas: It's a cryptocurrency company, and it's a Universal Basic Income project, and also it's a biometric-scanning company. If, first, the world will share its irises. According to a recent report by Bloomberg, Worldcoin's goal is to use cryptocurrency as way to spread money more equitably around the world in a setup similar to a universal basic income.

This is a guest post by Zia Hayat, founder and CEO of Callsign. Ever since Apple introduced the Touch ID fingerprint scanner to the iPhone 5S in September 2013, biometrics as a means of identifying consumers has swiftly moved from the realms of science fiction to science fact. Now, using a person's physiological attributes as a means of identification is moving beyond the fingerprint, as Samsung's Note 7 is capable of iris scanning and users of Apple's iPhone X are now able to open their phone with merely a glance. But following recent data breaches and a landmark court case in Illinois, physiological biometrics find themselves on the backfoot, with behavioral biometrics now offering a more robust and secure alternative. Traditional physiological biometrics aim to replace "things that you know" – passwords, PINs, memorable information, etc. – with "things that you are".

Ahead of Samsung Galaxy S9's debut, developers have uncovered information suggesting that the flagship Android smartphone is going to come equipped with an advanced biometric system. XDA Developers published a report over the weekend detailing what appears to be a new unlocking feature they found after doing an APK teardown of the Settings app on the latest Android Oreo beta for the tech giant's Galaxy Note 8 flagship phablet. Apparently, they stumbled upon strings pertaining to Samsung's upcoming 2018 flagships. The report states that the Galaxy S9 and S9 will likely come equipped with a feature called "Intelligent Scan," which is basically a combination of facial recognition and iris scanning technologies. Because this biometric system reads both face and iris scans, it offers better security and accuracy compared to the iris scanner that debuted with last year's flagship handsets.

This is a guest post by Ethan Ayer, CEO of Resilient Network Systems. With faceprints, voiceprints and iris scans beginning to replace passwords in everything from police work to amusement park admission, behavioral biometrics is becoming one of IT security's hottest trends. With promising contenders in Scandinavia to stateside biometrics companies being snapped up by the likes of MasterCard and others, the security race is on as organizations move to understand--and adopt--behavioral biometrics technology. IT security is a central concern for organizations as they seek to keep intellectual property and customer information secure. In today's threat climate, passwords and security questions are no longer enough to dissuade hackers.

The rail industry has come up with a plan that may as well be out of a science-fiction movie to cope with growing demand and overcrowding: charging rail passengers for journeys by fingerprint or iris scan. The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), the organisation representing train operators and Network Rail, claims biometric technology would enable fares to be automatically charged marking the start of an era that could radically accelerate commute times. The technology represents the next step from travellers being able to us smartphones' Bluetooth signals to open station barriers. That will be trialled on Chiltern Railways' route between London Marylebone and Oxford Parkway over the coming months. The use of digital signalling technology will also allow trains to operate closer together, cutting delay, according to the RDG.

Australia has started implementing biometric facial, iris and fingerprint recognition in airports, allowing passengers to go through without showing a passport or even talking to anyone. The "Seamless Traveler" project is aimed at creating a "fast, seamless self-processing experience for up to 90 percent of travelers," so that border control can focus on high-risk passengers. The handy, but invasive-sounding plan would allow international travelers to "literally just walk out like at a domestic airport," security analyst John Coyne told Australia's Sidney Morning Herald. The system would replace passport-scanning SmartGates, which were implemented in the nation just ten years ago. The government's plan to implement biometrics might be a touch ambitious, however.

The Calgary Police Service became the first force in Canada to start using facial recognition software to match suspects against a mug shot database this week, but it likely won't be the last. The use of facial recognition technology is growing not just in law enforcement and security fields but also in commerce. "One of the reasons face [recognition] is so popular is that face images exist of almost everybody," said Kevin Bowyer, an expert on biometrics and computer vision and chair of the department of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Some cellphone apps use face recognition instead of passwords to give users access to devices. "You've got your driver's licence photos, you've got your identity badges wherever you work, so you've got this legacy of images that are easily accessible for everyone."