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Biometrics and Your Privacy

October 2002 Mfg.Trust Feature Story
Biometrics and Your Privacy

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September 2002 Mfg.Trust Feature Story
Business Use of Biometrics

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Business Use of Biometrics

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ProQuest: For NCMS Members Only

Resources

(^top) Electronic Privacy Information Center,
Biometrics Privacy Page
http://www.epic.org/privacy/biometrics/

Your Face Is Not a Bar Code: Arguments against Automatic Face Recognition in Public Places
Philip E. Agre, Department of Information Studies, UCLA
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/bar-code.html

International Biometric Group, LLC
BioPrivacy Initiative
http://www.bioprivacy.org/

IBG is the biometric industry's leading consulting and technology services firm. IBG has provided technology-neutral and vendor-independent biometric solutions to financial institutions, government agencies, systems integrators and high-tech firms since 1996.

Using the BioPrivacy Initiative's three evaluative tools - 25 Best Practices, the BioPrivacy Impact Framework, and the BioPrivacy Technology Assessment - public and private sector institutions can ensure that new or existing biometric deployments are consistent with generally accepted privacy principles.  

Biometrics as a Privacy-Enhancing Technology: Friend or Foe of Privacy?
Dr. George Tomko, Chairman, Photonics Research Ontario

Biometrics is an area that is fraught with controversy. Those whose job it is to fight fraud, applaud its uses. Those who promote privacy, are generally fearful of it. The reason is quite simple -- in both cases, biometrics function by unquestionably tying a person to his or her chosen identity.
http://www.dss.state.ct.us/digital/tomko.htm

Biometrics and Privacy
Biometric technologies have extremely serious implications for human rights in general, and privacy in particular. Their uses to date have been to enable powerful organizations to exercise social control over people, and the designs have been highly insensitive to the interests of the individuals they're imposed upon. Click here.

Information Transport Associates
Web site. Secure ID Card White Paper (.pdf, 21Kb)

Validex
Employment Screening Services. Web site.

News & Trends

(^top) Privacy still a priority, officials say – Federal Computer Week, July 2002
Click here. Fingerprints, facial recognition, iris and retina scans, and other biometric technologies will be used more frequently to sort terrorists and criminals from the vast population of innocent people. But high-tech identification systems won't be allowed to undercut civil liberties. Privacy advocates find the plans unnerving. Experts worry that facial-recognition cameras could evolve into general surveillance systems and that biometric driver's licenses will morph into national ID cards.

Surveillance: From 'Big Brother' to Safety Tool

Palm Springs, California and Virginia Beach decide to install outdoor cameras on their main streets. Click here. This page is available without charge, but registration and logon is required.

Is biometrics ready to bust out?
Network World, Oct 2002. Click here.

For NCMS Members Only

(^top) NCMS Members:
No password? Don't remember? Contact NCMS here. 

 ProQuest:

Dealing with data privacy protection: An issue for the 21st century
Information Systems Management; Fall 2002

Marketing of safety enters mainstream
Advertising Age; Sep 23, 2002

Biometric lockers trialled in Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport
Airline Industry Information; Sep 10, 2002

The biometric locking system is provided by Smarte Carte Inc and uses a touch screen to input a traveler's fingerprint. The locker can then only be opened by the same fingerprint being placed on the touch screen.

(^top)

IDs --- Not That Easy

a book by the National Research Council available here

House Passes Federal Agency Privacy Bill

On Oct. 8, 2002 the House of  Representatives passed H.R. 4561, the Federal Agency Protection of Privacy Act. The Act would require federal agencies to carefully consider how newly issued regulations would affect privacy.