【环球时报】Thousands of kids register with‘eye bank’

Over 93,000 Chinese children have registered for the country's iris information repository, which was designed to help police identify lost children with iris recognition technology. 

More than 400 workstations  that use the repository has been set up in Chinese cities since April 2017, with over 93,000 iris patterns of Chinese children registered as for now, Zhang Jing, a spokesperson at Zhaobao Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, told the Global Times on Monday.

The Children's Iris Information Repository, formerly called the Anti-loss Iris Network Platform for Chinese Kids, is an iris information cloud platform developed by the Zhaobao Technology.

The latest workstation was established in Qionghai, South China's Hainan Province on Sunday, Hainan-based newspaper Nanguo Morning Post reported.

The workstation allows parents to register their children's iris information to the repository. Children need to go to the workstation to register, which will be unchanged and unique once children reach eight months, the report said. 

In the event children get lost or are abducted, police can quickly confirm their identities by comparing their iris information with those stored in the repository, and report the incident to their parents, according to a statement sent by the Zhaobao Technology to the Global Times on Monday.

The error rate of iris recognition is about one in a million, far lower than facial and fingerprint recognition, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"Registration is voluntary. But we are facing some difficulties because some parents are concerned over the safe use of their children's information," said Zhang.

The company claims registering only takes a few seconds and will do no harm to children's health, adding that the platform has passed China's Ministry of Public Security verification. 

Over 2,000 workstations are planned in China by 2019.

China solved 3,713 child trafficking cases from 2013 to 2016, Xinhua reported.

China established a child safety emergency response platform in 2015, which uses smartphone social application WeChat to alert police and volunteers if the children get lost, Xinhua reported.