Privacy Villain of the Week: DARPA's HumanID at a Distance The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency http://www.darpa.mil/ has been one of the more fruitful government agenies in the past, its DARPAnet computer network being the foundation for what would become the Internet some years later. That is why reading about what this outfit is up to now can at times be disheartening. One such project is the HumanID at a Distance program, which aims to move beyond face-recognition technology and purportedly identify people by the way the walk. The idea here is that by measuring with video or (clothes-penetrating) radar the distance between, say, 17 different points on the body http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/images/gait1.jpg and measuring how these points move in relation to one another, a person can be positively and uniquely identified. This "gait technology" by itself is neutral of course, just as technologies such as a gun or a needle or or the banging of flint against stone. The problem here arises in that by funding such research, the government is pushing a technology on society that it has not freely accepted through the voluntary choices made in the market. A patina of legitimacy is unfortunately added to such technologies when they have the imprimatur of the state behind them. Even when the lead researchers on the project issue a press release http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/GAIT.htm with conflictuing estimations of accuracy ranging from .0001% to 95%. These selfsame researchers go on to tout the tech for use "around federal buildings" and in airports (which have now had their security systems completely taken over by the federal government). The airport situation is particularly troubling, in that it would be installed after the new Transportation Security Agency has complete control of all US airports. Adding the full-body radar scans that are part of a gait-biometric system to their CAPPS database incorporating name, Social Security number, credit history, travel history, etc., is a small step. This would be another peice of information in a federal database left wide open to abuse by not only those with official and unofficial clearance but anyone who bribes or hacks their way in. In addition, the potential for false positives seems to be overwhelming. Even if the number is closer to 95% than .001%, what happens when a heavy piece of luggage and lack of sleep slumps the shoulders enough to peg a weary traveler as a dangerous terrorist? Is he or she strip-searched and detained by armed federal employees while the plane to his mother's funeral leaves for the other coast? This kind of technological forcing, especially in situations controlled by the state, puts individuals in a position where, due to lack of adequate societal knowledge, individuals are unable to control the kind of information being disseminated about themselves. Identification technology has its uses. But when government forces it on everyone, from a Social Security number onward, the long-term effects are net negative -- oversurveillance , undersecurity, identity theft, etc. DARPA scientists and their colleagues at places like Carnegie Mellon http://hid.ri.cmu.edu/ and Georgia Tech may be taking great strides forward -- but do they recignize where to, or why this may earn them the title of Privacy Villain of the Week? The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. Privacy Villain audio features now available from FCF News on Demand. http://www.fcfnews.com/ For more information on the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or contact James Plummer at 202-467-5809 or jplummer@consumeralert.org . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------