Can Biometrics and Privacy Coexist?
Biometrics have been used since the beginning of the human race. It is as simple as recognizing a familiar voice or face. Technology has been developed to do this for us, and governments are taking full advantage of it. Biometric systems have become highly sophisticated of the years, while becoming cheaper to implement.
Recently, in Australia there government has implemented biometrics at all there ports. The log every person the enters and leaves there country. The basically do a background check of all individuals that travel through there ports. The advantage of this is the can catch people that are trying to smuggle drugs or are evading arrest in another country. They also reported that they have interrupted kidnappings in progress. These all sound like great things.
With that being said there are some major pitfalls to the use of biometrics by government. Out there right now there is a large database of peoples identities. With cyber crimes becoming the next major outlet for terrorists is it smart to have such a large scale and sensitive database on the internet? One hacker could start a wave of identity thefts that could plague a nation.
There is a large group of individuals that think biometric use is a breach of privacy and personal rights. Biometric data can be easily gathered on someone with out there knowledge through the use of facial recognition. Any time you check into a Vegas hotel/casino you are logged into there security system which then will get distributed to other casinos without your knowledge that it ever occurred. I understand that there only purpose is to record and follow cheaters, but what about the rest of the data?
Companies have proved that they have no remorse on selling your phone number or e-mail address for there own financial gain. What's to say the won't start selling your biometric data. You can't just change your biometrics like you can your e-mail or phone number. It worries me, how does it make you feel?
