Kai Kloepfer started biometric “smart” gun startup Biofire as a science fair project after the Aurora, Colorado, mass shooting in 2012 brought the U.S.’s gun violence problem close to home. Kloepfer began thinking of ways to solve the problem using what he knows: technology.
Twelve years later, that project has turned into Biofire, a firearms company that makes weapons that use fingerprints and facial recognition technology to unlock only for their owners and registered users. When the gun leaves a registered user’s hands, it automatically relocks, Kloepfer told TechCrunch+. This is all done on a closed-loop system meant to keep it secure and prevent potential hacking.
Biofire’s system is designed to prevent firearms from falling into unintended hands. Kloepfer knows that Biofire can’t solve the gun violence epidemic, but he feels that it can make a difference, especially for children. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S., with 29% being suicide and 3.5% being accidental, which are things Biofire could help prevent.
