Biometrics and Masking UP

national | eu | opinion/analysis Thursday June 17, 2004 17:52 by biomatrix

EU summit on Biometrics June 14-15 2004

A question often debated by activists is whether or not to ‘mask up’. It seems the main argument against ‘masking up’ is accountability. People feel that they have a right to protest and thus have nothing to hide. Which is fair enough, but people who have been on protests on this island recently will be only too familiar with the sight of a uniformed garda filming from the side-lines. This increase in garda surveillance makes one feel uneasy, but even more so in light of the recent EU summit on Biometrics. It was held in Dublin on Monday and Tuesday (June 14 and 15).

Biometrics the statistical study of biological phenomena, but lately it is more associated with the science of identity. And the technology that accompanies it is state of the art. No longer smudgy black ink fingerprints taken in an overcrowded stuffy room in the passport office. This is now simply pressing an index finger ever-so-lightly on a scanner smaller than a computer mouse – or it is being photographed by a camera (with facial mapping capabilities) that is much smaller than a mobile phone.
A computer then analysis’s and stores these independent features of the human body to provide a database of information – and obviously with a combination of several biometrics there is less room for false rejection or false acceptance. At present only iris and fingerprint recognition are suitable for multiple application elimination – but face and voice recognition as well as hand geometry can also be used to authenticate a persons identity.

At the summit the EU delegates were told that the aim is to supply every citizen in the continent with a biometric passport by 2007. What this means is that your passport will carry with it multi-modal identification information (face, finger and iris recognition).
But a key point often raised by the delegates as well as the corporations vying for tenders is how to make it acceptable to the citizens.
Well, one way to encourage the public’s complicity is to keep the level of fear and paranoia heightened. So it looks like it’s going to be a good long while before we hear the end of the evil terrorists who are out to murder and maim each person in the EU.
The other way is to make the technology user friendly and non-threatening looking – and if you look at the brochures and the equipment it all looks like something out of a glossy mobile phone commercial. Pretty, young multicultural people posing with a smile as they go about their daily lives with a biometric passport that looks like one of their credit cards, safe and happy in the knowledge that their government has all of their details on a central database for their protection. This is the cyber-nanny state.

And while it may be indisputable that biometrics could significantly enhance a countries security it is also equally conceivable that biometrics could be used to severely curb civil liberties and quell dissent. What happens when a state which is holding presidency of the EU wants to make life difficult for protesters who are struggling against capitalism and against ‘fortress Europe’?
In the run up to the Dublin Mayday ‘protests for an alternative Europe’ two non-nationals who had come over to Ireland to protest were detained for a few hours by the garda in the city centre even though they had both produced passports and bank cards to verify who they were. With biometric passports it is highly conceivable that people could be prevented from travelling to other countries to protest against policies that affect them - purely because they are considered to be ‘a security risk’ or are ‘known agitators’.

And what of states who have a despicable human rights record, states like Israel? In the occupied territory there are hundreds of permanent checkpoints, not just along the border, they are also scattered throughout the land checking and curtailing the movement of people. Already in the last 3 years 10 000 people have been prevented from entering the country – many of these are internationals who were intending to offer solidarity and aid to Palestinians.

With biometrics and inter-state data-sharing any country could easily prevent human rights observers and independent journalists from entering or moving about the country, and so silence any potential reports on atrocities.

The negative possibilities are unfortunately endless, and it will be interesting to see how this debate will play out in the mainstream media. But until then, take note at the next protest you are on of the uniformed and non-uniformed people who are filming you; and maybe you also might agree that wearing a mask and a pair of shades is more than a fashion statement.