http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0213/285183.html [snip] Labeled the "Consumer Biometric Privacy Protection Act of 1998," the bill prohibits trafficking in biometric databases, mandates increased security for storing such data, and prevents businesses from recording data for biometric identification without the owner's consent. The bill also increases the severity of identity theft, from a misdemeanor to a felony. "How would you like your fingerprints to be sold over the Internet?" [snip] "[Biometric] identifiers [have the potential] to provide an efficient, unintrusive, and accurate means of identifying consumers in a variety of commercial and government applications," said the text of the bill. [snip] A massive proliferation of "fingertip scanning" products... http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/pcwk/1505/279078.html In separate efforts to strengthen the rapidly evolving biometric industry, vendors and industry groups have announced three separate biometric APIs, each proposed as "the standard API" for biometric application development. Now the real work begins, as developers, users, industry associations, manufacturing interests and government agencies express their opinions on which to back or on how to roll them into one. [snip] The National Registry Inc. (www.nrid.com) was the first to unveil a universal standard, dubbed HA-API, although IBM had announced its coming API previously. NRI developed HA-API as an initiative for the U.S. Department of Defense. The outcome is a high-level umbrella for any biometric technology, although the specification currently supports only the Win32 environment. NRI has demonstrated HA-API's capability by implementing it in its line of fingertip scanning products, as well as in Keyware Technologies Inc.'s Voice Guardian speaker verification product. [snip]