Unwrapping the Biometric Present

Posted on January 20, 2005

A good article on the US’s adoption of biometrics abroad and at home. The following sensible quote is from the third page of the article:

It’s a good idea to add fingerprints and digitally-signed photographs to passports and visa applications. Nobody’s interest is served by having weak identification schemes on our passports: such systems actually increase the chances that passports will be stolen, altered, and fraudulently used. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission’s report details a factory that Al Qaeda had created in Afghanistan for doing just that with captured passports.

At the same time, it’s a bad idea to start using biometrics to pick individuals out of a crowd — that is, to use them for primary identification — since it’s notoriously inaccurate and far more subject to abuse.

» Filed Under Blogger Posts, biometrics, security, usa

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