Imagine my surprise when speaking to a friend of mine, who is a mental health service user at the Wells Road Centre in Mapperley, Nottingham, that the Centre had introduced iris scans for anyone entering the building. My first thought was "you must be joking!" The idea of iris scan access seems orwellian and sinister in any application, but using it in an environment where paranoia is commonplace seemed like madness! I wanted to find out what was going on.

I contacted a manager at the centre expressing my concern. She informed me that the system had been introduced as a way to stop drug dealers and ex-service users entering the building. Apparently, after "exhaustive consultation" with service user groups, iris scanning was decided on as the best way to manage this.

This struck me as bizarre due to the cost of this technology, and the likely effect on some service users who might be expected to fear and distrust the technology. For example, schizophrenics can experience delusions of control, e.g. that external agencies are inserting thoughts in their head, and this kind of technology could easily trigger such delusions. This should be obvious to staff working in mental health. A similar point was raised during evidence given by a House of Commons Select Committee on the government's ID cards scheme by Dr Edgar Whitley (London School of Economics' Information Systems Group):

"At the Westminster e-Forum meeting on 14 February there was a speaker from a mental health charity* pointing out that if you have mental health problems and schizophrenia and are concerned about government, being forced to enrol in a government-controlled database is clearly not going to be very beneficial for you."
 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmsctech/1032/6050307.htm

As the arm of the state most prominent in service users lives, the same could be said about a health service controlled dataabse. It seems that information systems researchers are aware of the issues, but those running mental health services are slower on the uptake!

There are other fears that service users and staff might have about the technology. It is deeply invasive to people's privacy, requiring a person's biometric information be stored. Whilst the Wells Road Centre scheme was full of reassurances about compliance with the Trust's Data Protection Policy, there was no guarantee that the data couldn't be used to track the coming and going of people using the building in the future.

Apparently provision was made for service users who did have problems with the scheme. They could alert staff to their presence and be let in a different door. How this option was made available to service users is not clear. Were service users informed that the scheme was voluntary, or were they just told "This is happening"? That would hardly be informed consent.

These tactics are similar to those that are being employed by the government in bringing in the national ID register. At first sight the scheme appears to be voluntary - until you realise that there are strings attached to non-cooperation, and that there might very well be a change in the rules at some later date making inclusion on the database compulsory. Given the vulnerability of some mental health service users to authority figures, and their dependence on the services provided, I imagine informed consent to the scheme would be difficult to determine.

Fortunately the pilot iris scanning was terminated during February, because "it did not achieve the original brief, and was not considered to be adding benefit in terms of staff, patient and visitor safety." Sadly it wasn't ditched because of the civil liberties implications, but good that it came to an end. I have no problem with the Centre wanting to protect staff and service users from abuse, but surely there are better ways to do it than this.


*Jane Harris, Senior Campaign Officer, Rethink. Presentation in Westminster eForum "Implementing ID Cards"