For SORIS to succeed, of course, counties nationwide will have to sign up. Though the technology was unveiled only a few weeks ago, many have already expressed interest, says BI2 CEO Sean Mullin. Pendergraph plans to photograph the irises of every sex offender in the county, either visiting them at home or calling them into the station (he says they can’t refuse). And once his deputies get soon-to-be-offered PDA devices that connect to the system, they plan to scan the irises of people they pull over and suspect of having committed a crime. All of which dismays civil-liberties advocates. “The potential privacy invasion … makes me nervous,” says Richard Wright, a member of the Massachusetts ACLU board. He also doubts whether it will even be effective. “If a sex offender wants to commit a crime they will commit a crime,” he says. “It doesn’t matter what technology police put together.”
