BIOMETRIC RECOGNITION IS SHAPING OUR WORLD TOWARDS MASS SURVEILLANCE text: KIMMO HALUNEN Senior Scientist & Research Team Leader at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
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he use of biometric recognition systems – facial recognition being the prime example – is spreading all over the world in various contexts. For individual users, these can provide great ease of use to access their devices and services. On the other hand, they can also enable surveillance at a scale and accuracy not experienced before. The needs for these systems come from both security and usability. Users have experienced an explosive growth in different services that they use online or through digital devices. The usability of passwords is fairly poor and causes significant toll to the users. Biometrics offer a more usable alternative to passwords, at least when they work properly. From the security point of view, there has been a proliferation of cameras and other sensors in our public (as well as many private) spaces. Biometric recognition systems can use these devices for security-related surveillance. This then erodes our privacy and can lead to drastic changes in the power dynamics of our society.
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CYBERWATCH
FINLAND
One example of this dynamic was presented in the demonstrations and eventual riots in Hong Kong a while back. When the protesters were being surrounded in one university campus area, the police offered to let anyone leave, as long as they could be photographed by the police. This goes to show that the police had very high confidence on the cameras and other surveillance apparatus set up around Hong Kong (and possibly also in China) with which they could get a hold of these individuals by facial recognition technologies in the future, if they so choose. Some news have also stated, that for example the Chinese police were able to find and apprehend a wanted person from a crowd of thousands of people in a few minutes with the help of the facial recognition systems. It is interesting to note, that times of crisis tend to lower the bar for setting up privacy invasive technologies. For example, the many contact tracing apps related to COVID-19 have been rushed
to tackle the spread of the disease. Also, some biometric approaches (e.g. body temperature measurements) have been proposed. The difference between facial recognition and these emergency technologies is, that many countries have very specific rules on when these new disease tracing apps should be used. On the other hand, in some places this technology is being proposed as a permanent part of people’s lives. In any case, having an app and not being compelled to use it, is very different from biometric recognition that can occur without the consent and knowledge of the surveilled. Luckily, these problems do have solutions. There are both technological solutions such as advanced cryptography and more epheremal biometrics and procedural methods like the GDPR and current bans on facial recognition tech for example in the US. However, none of these are perfect and many are fairly local in scope. Global solutions (technological or regulatory) to the
