Biometric Technology Continues its Spread

updated October 10, 2008

The post below, based on an article about a recent Biometrics conference, mistakenly attributes a comparison between "cockroaches" and "enemies" to Ltc. Col. Brian Hunt. Hunt has let me know that the attribution to him in the original article was incorrect -- it was someone else at the conference who said it. Patrick Marshall did not answer my query asking him to clarify his article. I apologize to Ltc. Hunt for the inaccuracy and have stricken the entire section referencing it, from the blog (below). I'd note though, that someone else may have said it, and my own dismay at the analogy, made by anonymous, stands.

Reporter Patrick Marshall's review of the 2008 annual Biometrics Consortium Conference, "Biometrics Moves Past 'What If" and into "How To," offers a revealing look at the evolution of biometric tools in the context of the U.S. war on terror.

Biometry is the use of statistical analysis to interpret biological data. While a basic biometric tool, fingerprinting, has been traced to the 14th century, computer aided techniques propelled the field significantly in the last quarter of the 20th century. Post-9/11 security fears helped make biometric identification acceptable stateside, while Iraq war offered the U.S. military a testing ground for emerging technologies. (Wired's Noah Shachtman gave a lively account of the process of fingerprinting and iris scanning in Fallujah in 2007.)

Main points of the speakers at the Conference included:

• Sophisticated biometric technology already exists.
• The military is looking ahead to implementation both overseas and in the United States, at its domestic command, Northern Command.
• Interoperability and data sharing are high priorities. Interoperability means that different databases speak with each other; the military also wants to make sure there are technicians capable of using biometric recording devices in countries the U.S. cannot enter.

The upshot: The government is working toward the day when databases containing biometric data of as many of the world's citizens as possible can be shared across national borders. The data is suppsed to help let most of us move freely, while tagging bad guys (criminals, militants), regardless of where they travel.

And then, there is also this blip in the otherwise clipped technical language of the conference technocrats: the comment of Lt. Col. Brian Hunt, chief of the operations division of the Army’s Biometrics Task Force, comparing enemies to cockroaches:

Hunt said the biggest problem is in the field, where troops are collecting biometric data on suspected or known enemies. “They are like cockroaches,” Hunt said of the enemies, noting that warfighters have to go into the “dark spots” to collect biometric data.

Presumably Hunt meant to evoke the ability of roaches to scuttle quickly out of reach. But I could not help being reminded of the use of animal metaphors to dehumanize enemies in a few of the 20th centuries' most terrible conflicts. Yes, in those conflicts, in Rwanda, in Nazi Germany, the victims were innocent; here they may well be criminals, or militants plotting terrorist acts. But those facts don't put their humanity in question. Hunt's unwitting commentary suggests the care with which we should integrate biometric technologies into our societies. Criminals or innocents, the technology slices us all into parts and pieces--retinas, fingertips, irises, faces, DNA--perhaps making it difficult to remember what binds us.