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"The permanent government now is the anchorpeople. They don't get elected, and year after year they're responding emotionally to this or that."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Facial Recognition  
  A device that scans a person, compares to a database, and brings out more stored information.  

As they reached the center of the court, a scanning device in the wall fastened its attention on them, simultaneously checking through a large store of previously registered human images and data associated with these. The image approaching it on the left was that of a slender girl above medium height, age twenty-six, with a burnished pile of hair which varied from chestnutbrown to copper in the sun, eyes which appeared to vary between blue and gray, and an air of composed self-reliance. Her name, the scanner noted among other details, was Arlene Marguerite Rolf. Her occupation: micromachinist. Her status: MAY PASS.
Technovelgy from Rogue Psi, by James Schmitz.
Published by Amazing Stories in 1962
Additional resources -

Compare to Selective Electric Eye from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), face recognition sunglasses from The Water Knife (2015) by Paolo Bacigalupi and the cephalic pattern door from The Zap Gun (1965) by Philip K. Dick.

The earliest reference to a biometric recognition lock is probably the phonographic lock from A Journey to the Year 2025, by Clement Fezandie, published in 1921.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Rogue Psi
  More Ideas and Technology by James Schmitz
  Tech news articles related to Rogue Psi
  Tech news articles related to works by James Schmitz

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