Smell You Later

Author: Chris Brook

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hatched a plan to use body-odor as a method of identifying individuals. The DHS wanted to establish odor based biometric signatures that could uniquely identify both friend and foe. It then might be able to determine if changes in odor could be used as a tool to provide evidence of deception. Civil liberty groups cried foul.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hatched a plan to use body-odor as a method of identifying individuals. The DHS wanted to establish odor based biometric signatures that could uniquely identify both friend and foe. It then might be able to determine if changes in odor could be used as a tool to provide evidence of deception. Civil liberty groups cried foul. DHS maintained that it just wanted to “[improve] the ability to identify individuals who may intend harm to the nation.”

(Image via kyletaylor‘s Flickr photostream)

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