By Dr Risco Mutelo
Since 9/11 governments worldwide started implementing border security reform and biometric technologies have played a key role.
This has fuelled the rapid advances in Biometric identification to the benefit of both government and private sectors. Biometric technology is slowly creeping into everyday life.
Law Enforcement: Law enforcement agencies such as local police departments and international organisations (including Europol and Interpol) use biometrics for the identification of suspects. Evidence on crime scenes, such as fingerprints or closed-circuit camera footage, are compared against the organisation’s database in search of a match. DNA has also been widely used.
Border Security: Biometrics has been used to verify the identity of people entering and leaving a country. European Union biometric passports even include information about the holder’s fingerprints. The U.S. immigration system also requires visitors to the U.S. or applicants for a visa to provide digital fingerprint scans and a photograph.
Transactions with Banks: Banks have started introducing advanced biometric identification systems to cope with cases of fraud, especially in automated transactions in ATMs.
Other Users: Some ticket offices use biometric identification technology to prevent ticket fraud or illegitimate resale as well as to avoid the time-consuming process of photo ID check. In addition, electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones use biometric data to allow access only to registered users as a means to tackle identify fraud.
Imagine walking into banks, stores, offices, factories, police stations and government buildings and instantly being recognised. Modern biometrics technology such as hand vein reading technology would appear as witchcraft to someone living in 1780. Likewise, the not-too-distant future’s identification science seems frightening and piercingly intrusive to us today.
Any time we consider giving up personal information to someone else, we have to consider what the implications are. For example, we might be perfectly comfortable with telling trusted family members where and how to access a secret stash of emergency money, but not as willing to share that information with a non trusted individuals. Biometrics is very personal and potentially damaging if somehow used in ways we did not expect when providing the information. These days there is so much information about each of us that seems to just somehow make its way to the Internet, government offices and employment databases. In the next article we discuss biometrics privacy fears.
Dr Risco Mutelo is a Namibian who currently works for the Bank of America stationed in London where he studied Biometrics Engineering at New Castle University in the United Kingdom.