Skincential’s consumer brand, Clearista, makes “skin resurfacing” products designed to make your skin clearer and more “youthful,” according to its website.
But the CIA isn’t just interested in youthful-looking skin.
Skincential developed a patented technology that painlessly strips a thin outer layer of skin, collecting unique biomarkers that can be used for DNA collection, according to The Intercept.
It’s a system that allows the CIA to glean data about people’s unique biochemistry.
“I can’t tell you how everyone works with In-Q-Tel, but they are very interested in doing things that are pure science,” Russ Lebovitz, the CEO of Skincential, told The Intercept. “If there’s something beneath the surface, that’s not part of our relationship and I’m not directly aware. They’re interested here in something that can get easy access to biomarkers.”
In-Q-Tel was founded in 1999 by George Tenet, then the CIA director. Its website says it is an “independent, not-for-profit organization created to bridge the gap between the technology needs of the US intelligence community and emerging commercial innovation.”
If all this sounds like something straight out of a science-fiction movie, that’s because it is.
According to NPR, In-Q-Tel was named after Q, the character who makes technology for James Bond, the world’s best-known fictional spy.
“We really needed something that also had appeal to a wider audience and, frankly, had some sex to it,” Jeffrey Smith, the CIA’s former general counsel, told NPR in 2012.
In-Q-Tel has also been a major player in Silicon Valley over the past decade.
“Much of the touch-screen technology used now in iPads and other things came out of various companies that In-Q-Tel identified,” Smith told NPR.
As for Skincential, the company has more grounded ambitions. Lebovitz, the CEO, told The Intercept that he hoped the company would be acquired by a larger beauty-products company.
At a conference in February, which brought together senior members of the intelligence community and Silicon Valley heavy hitters, Lebovitz told The Intercept he was the “odd man out” but “almost every woman at the conference wanted to come up to me to talk about skincare.”
This article was originally published on Business Insider. Copyright 2016.
