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Biometrics - the future at our fingertips?
There are few issues as contentious as the proposed ID card scheme from the Home Office. In order better understand biometrics, and what exactly constitutes someone’s personal biometric information, the Social Market Foundation hosted an event in Westminster entitled "Biometrics - The Future at our Fingertips" that outlined and clarified some of the key issues on the subject.
Professor Jim Wayman, an independent advisor to the US, UK and Australian governments was the keynote speaker and gave a considered look at the myriad questions that have to be considered when discussing biometrics. He started by underlining that defining biometrics itself is not a simple subject and indeed is the cause of much debate itself between many major organisations including the Oxford English Dictionary.
He then outlined one the major issues affecting the use of ID cards, both from a philosophical and realistic point of view – that people don’t like giving up their information – even though they already do it on a regular basis. Citing the example of UK Iris and driving licenses, a retina scanning device that is used by passport and immigration officials to allow users of the system into the UK more efficiently, Professor Wayman noted that many people happily give up a photo of their face for documentation such as passports and driving licenses, yet are uncomfortable with the idea of giving up other information such as blood type, fingerprints or DNA data.
This led to on to the issue of privacy and what people should or shouldn’t be expected to do for an ID card and the differing levels of what people would find uncomfortable. The legal implications of this are also rather undefined, and although the United States has a definition that says individuals have, “the right to be let alone”, this cannot cover all countries and cultures, and for the US itself is not a concrete definition. Furthermore there are issues of whether biometric information should be used a ‘negative claim’ or a ‘positive claims’, i.e. is the system there for the person to prove they are ‘known’ to the system or ‘unknown’ and which is the correct option for different security levels.
As a result different systems will have different levels of security and Professor Wayman noted that in some instances biometrics are not the best solution – citing the example and success of chip and pin. Not only is chip and pin secure and has been accepted by the public but it has the benefit that other people can use it, if the data is supplied by the owner of the card to a trusted individual – such as a family member.
However, after all this issues had been touched Professor Wayman did outline his belief that, although not perfect yet, biometric information did hold a huge amount of potential and, when questioned by a delegate, said he believed that current systems available on the market did have the capability to manage and protect the vast amount of data that would be stored on such a database.
It remains fair to say thought, that convincing a sceptical population of these benefits, and the security benefits it could offer, will continue to prove one of the main challenges for biometrics in the coming future.
