BANGKOK: Thailand has been using optical scanning technology on workers in its fishing industry since October to help it combat slave labor and human trafficking, (AFP) reports. The ministry has done optical scanning to 70,000 people who work on fishing boats so that we can track their identity,” Adul Sangsingkeo, the country’s labor minister, reportedly announced at a briefing on Thursday in Bangkok.
The roll out of the program, which captures data from the iris, is early and part of an overarching plan to register workers. Once complete it will be used to make sure workers are on the boats they are registered with and not farmed out to other vessels.
The government is still creating software to read the data collected while also developing measures to handle facial and fingerprint scanning.