Save Biometrics From Senseless Deployment

This video clip from CNBC provides insight into some of the ways biometric systems are being used in security. There are some great uses for biometric technology, for example as automated fingerprint identification systems to facilitate police investigations or as a form of access control to a secured perimeter or even computer network. The suggestion that travellers should be permitted through the use of biometric technology to travel unhindered across borders, however, is chilling.

Such thinking at a surface level appears sound – why couldn’t we automate the process of checking passports or other travel documents against the bearer? The approach, unfortunately, is faulty as it assumes that the use of identity documents as a security measure is solid to begin with.

Granted, the checking of identity documents can help in capturing known criminals. The use of biometric technology can even facilitate in apprehending these known threats. Security measures, however, that use biometric technology in identity and travel documents deployed at border crossings are typically not implemented to solve crimes committed but to prevent crimes in advance, such as thwarting terrorism.

Unfortunately, there are three main flaws with the identity-as-a-proactive approach:

1.) Individuals who pose a threat but have no previous criminal record will pass undetected,
2.) False official identities can be established, particularly if the official identity was established in or the supporting documents used to establish the official identity come from another country; and
3.) The intent of an individual to commit a crime cannot be determined through automated identity based systems, whereas a border guard might detect some nuances in an individual’s behaviour.

All of this is assuming the measure in question requires the individual crossing the border to present a biometric identifier such as a finger or iris print, which will then be compared with the print stored inside the chip in the identity document and not against a pre-existing file stored in a centralized database elsewhere. Cross referencing on-site biomteric scans with a centralized database would only compound security concerns.

It would appear that the eagerness to use biometric technology to automate border checkpoints is just another in a long line of attempts to find technological answers to old human problems. Always a recipe for disaster.