BIOMETRIC ID CARD

Biometric ID Card

Biometrics, a Case of Interleaving Between Security and Freedom

Introduction

Biometrics is an interesting subject, firstly because it is located at the intersection of two powerful contemporary logic, which are traceability and identification of individuals, and also because it assumes an ambivalent. Biometrics is indeed both a threat to the right to privacy of Constitution Fundamental Freedoms, and a means to protect it by strengthening the confidentiality of communications. This ambiguity allows some to argue that biometrics could reconcile security and freedom, and would overcome the opposition between these two widely accepted concepts (League of Human Rights, pp.125).

Overview of Biometrics

Biometrics is a technique for identification using physiological characteristics and/or behavioural. This general definition does not allow distinguishing between the uses, which involve risks differentiated: each technology has its advantages (reliability, ability to discriminate between individuals, or singling out, adjusting to varying terrain, weather analysis, etc.) and its risks. First, some biometric data may reveal health, and thereby be used for purposes other than those aimed at the identification. Then, the CNIL distinguishes between technologies “to trace” (fingerprints, DNA) and others (contour of the hand), there they put us at increased risk of identity theft in the sense that we do not have any control over this feature we are introducing in our environment at every moment (Lapierre, pp. 445).

Furthermore, the use of biometric technology can serve two distinct purposes, which are important aspects of the security debate / freedoms. Biometrics allows verifying the identity of the subject, in which case we compare the biometric subject to those already registered, the person claiming to be the subject. Secondly, biometrics identifies the subject by comparing his fingerprints to a database for recognition. In the first case, we are dealing with a comparison 1-1, and the establishment of a database is not needed (the biometric features can be stored on a card or a USB key held by the subject). However, in the second case, we compare one-to-many (1 to x) to identify an unknown: a centralized database is necessary (www.cnrs.fr).

Security Risks

The recent growth of biometrics raises concerns not only for the associations of protection of human rights but also data protection authorities, which meet in the common observation of the emergence of a “surveillance society”. This could undermine the foundations of democracy by destroying our ability to act and move in relative anonymity. The panopticon of Foucault is thus to Orwell's Big Brother to warn us against an omniscient power that holds the ability to track our every movement, and thus violate our right to privacy, which requires a certain amount of escapes our privacy surveillance, state or private. This traceability is a slap into the sphere of individual liberties in the name of a security requirement. The National Advisory Committee on Ethics (CCNE) notes that “each person must be tattooed, marked, on behalf of a collective interest. They pass insensibly identity of the individual right-to-one identification obligation or duty to society “Collective security dictates its demands in the ...