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LindaShenSecondPaper 4 - 16 Apr 2013 - Main.EbenMoglen
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Biometric Data and the "Psychics" of the Future | | | Biometric technology has become increasingly popular since the September 2001 terrorist attack, where government organizations began taking escalated measures of data collection in the name of security. Many airports and cities rushed to install cameras with facial recognition in hopes of identifying terrorists and criminals in crowds, often with questionable rates of accuracy. This endeavor has taken on particularly epic scope abroad: biometrics on over 1.5 million Afghans exist in databases operated by American, NATO, and local forces, which translates into 1 in 20 Afghan residents, and roughly 1 in 6 males of fighting age. In Iraq, the analogue rises to 2.2 million, 1 in 14 citizens, and roughly 1 in 4 males of fighting age.
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> | Surely these numbers
are absolutely tiny. You might have been talking instead about the
billion photos a day at Facebook, or the retinal patterns being
acquired in the Indian government's Universal ID program.
| | | Biometrics gained further prominence in June 2011, when social media giant Facebook debuted its facial recognition tool as an opt-out feature, without first obtaining user consent for collecting the biometric data necessary for the tool to operate. In response, the Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, while Germany threatened to sue for violation of German and EU data protection laws. To many, Facebook’s behavior was alarming, as it exposed if not reaffirmed the type of surreptitious data collection and dissemination that organizations like Facebook feel entitled to conduct regularly, often with little legal repercussion. (Two other examples include In re Facebook Privacy Litigation, and In re Zynga Privacy Litigation.) For those who remain skeptical of the hazards of biometric data collection, here is why you should care: | | | -- LindaShen - 14 Apr 2013 | |
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"Biometrics" turns out to be less helpful than confusing as a
category here, because fingerprints, retinal prints, facial
features, DNA sequenced from deposited skin cells, and other
examples given all raise different practical issues while preserving
one basic feature, the omnipresence of automated identity
determination. If we back away from the trees, slightly, to restore
our sense of the forest, that's the issue: what happens when
identity is automatically determined everywhere, and we lose forever
any practical anonymity at all? The essay means to be about that,
but doesn't get the issue successfully identified.
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