[Clips] Biometric bonanza

R.A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Sat Sep 9 07:15:02 PDT 2006


--- begin forwarded text


  Delivered-To: rah at shipwright.com
  Delivered-To: clips at philodox.com
  Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2006 10:09:35 -0400
  To: Philodox Clips List <clips at philodox.com>
  From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
  Subject: [Clips] Biometric bonanza
  Reply-To: clips-chat at philodox.com
  Sender: clips-bounces at philodox.com


<http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/opinion/1157791091303420.xml&coll=2>

  The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  Cleveland.com

  Biometric bonanza

  There's money to be made bringing security up to date, but Americans will
  find that privacy just isn't in the cards

  Saturday, September 09, 2006

  Identity technology that once was film fantasy is about to become part of
  our lives. Credit approved not on a card, but on the scan of a fingerprint.
  Hospital medications dispensed not according to instructions on a bedside
  chart, but from those on a patient's computer chip. Banking transactions
  conducted not on a signature, but on the reading of an iris.

  And - oh, yes - the driving reason for this sea change in personal
  identification will be national security.

  Welcome to the Fearful New World, where real and perceived needs for
  increased security meet the technological ability to provide it. And the
  burgeoning biometrics industry is more than willing to sell us the rope by
  which privacy may be hanged.

  The Washington Post recently laid out this nexus of profit and protection.
  It will be driven by the replacement in a few months of federal employees'
  ID cards. The cards, with similar versions planned for transportation
  workers, first responders and foreign visitors, will have fingerprints and
  a computer chip with the capacity to hold far more information than will be
  necessary for positive identification.

  That will involve perhaps $8 billion in identity-related contracts, a
  prospect that has companies from major technology providers down to plastic
  card providers slavering at the potential market.

  But that's chump change compared to what could come: the reinvention of the
  driver's license and state identity cards. Ordered by Congress in the Real
  Identity Act last year, the redesign will have to meet standards yet to be
  set by the Department of Homeland Security. Estimates are that the new
  documents won't demand all of the biometrics included in the federal IDs -
  at least, several states have expressed hope that they won't. But the
  technology is ready to apply, and not only national security forces have an
  interest in its use.

  Banks may lobby for secure cards that would guarantee the identities of
  their patrons. Retailers already are working on fingerprint identification
  of credit-using customers. Hospitals want identity systems that might
  better prevent treatment mix-ups. They and many other groups that want more
  positive identification are prepared to lobby long and hard for their
  concerns to be included in whatever demands Homeland Security finally makes.

  The one common document that could provide all of this and more is the
  hitherto lowly driver's license or state identity card, long a low-tech,
  insecure, readily misused piece of identification.

  The result, by any other name, will be a national identity card, long the
  bane of Americans who treasure the disappearing penumbra of privacy.

  The best hope privacy-seekers have against the massing identity forces is
  legislation that will strictly limit what information they must carry,
  allow the bearer immediate access to the card's information so that
  imbedded mistakes can be corrected, and severely punish its misuse. Beyond
  that, there's little hope that the infamous World War II movie line, "your
  papers, please," won't become a bitterly ironic tag line to the war against
  terrorism.

  --
  -----------------
  R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
  The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
  44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
  "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
  [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
  experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
  _______________________________________________
  Clips mailing list
  Clips at philodox.com
  http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips

--- end forwarded text


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list