Biometrics: "The Silver Bullet For Terrorism?"

Since 9/11 and the war in Iraq, we as a nation have been growing increasingly concerned about how to prevent terrorists attacks. I have seen documentaries and other things in the media that lead us to believe that we may be a little closer to finding as solution. Already, we have begun to make traveling by plane a major undertaking and an oftentime tedious, risky process. I feel that it is often risky because we do not know the full scope of what will be deemed as a threat on a plane. I heard about people being detained or delayed simply for having a toe nail clip or a finger nail file in their carry-on bags. Perfumes (if not already prohibited) might even be seen as a threat if there is no way of really knowing the true contents of their containers. I have watched on the news and read in papers so much about the need to arrive very early to go through the security screening processes in enough time to make your flight. The worst case scenario I recently read about was one where passengers were prohibited from getting off the plane while it had been grounded longer than 2 hours just as a security measure. All of these hassles we must go through in an effort for the powers that be to try to sniff out potential terrorists or other threats.

The list of stories and bad experiences go and on, but from what I have seen, heard, or read so far, these incidences are rarely magnified because of these security screening processes are base upon promoting and maintaining national security. If a few feathers get ruffled in the process of achieving this broad based goal, then we have to see it as utilitarianism at best---the greatest good for the greatest number.

Some argue that there needs to be a modification to this process---an easier way to weed out the potential problems or threats to our national security. There is already so much technology being directed toward this effort and specialized training is continuously being provided to the essential personnel yet that is not enough.

Proponents for the increased use of technologic security measures would like to see biometric systems implemented to more accurately identify those who may or may not pose a threat to our national security(EFF Sep 2003). It seems that whatever systems are already being implemented must be deemed so much more inefficient perhaps due to their lack of ability to use unique identifiers to discriminate terrorists from ordinary citizens. Thus biometric-based security systems would resolve this inefficiency via a more accurate means for catching terrorists because they can use unique identifiers via human "bio" samples to spot these type of criminals during a simple scan (EFF 2003).

The belief is that biometrics (e.g. fingerprint) could pin point the correct person seeking to execute some harmful act in a less imperfect manner. If we would simply deploy this type of technology on a broad basis as the most appropriate security protocol, then we could ultimately rely on all other, less efficient methods a whole lot less.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is concerned that we are being duped into beleiving that this is best alternative, the end-all, be-all, cure-all by the marketing efforts of proponents for biometrics use (EFF Sep 2003). This group worries that this ideal of a "silver bullet (EFF Sep 2003)" mentality is diminishing the unspoken side effects of its use and what we know to be fact That fact is that database consistency is not guranteed because when managed by individuals it is likely to be error-prone or at risk for manipulation.

We can not escape errors eternally. Biometrics are not only limited by human error, but also by the hardware and other physical storage systems that will house them (e.g. failed and or outdated systems). What will happen if biometric data has to be continually transferred between systems for either system upgrades or information sharing? The potential for inconsistent retrieval of data and lost updates among many things are issues that need to be considered among a whole host of others.

The list of potential issues that are a major concern for the EFF and citizens who oppose the deployment of biometric systems on the national level will likely grow. We can expect no overnight eradication of terrorism via some magic pill or "silver bullet (EFF Sep 2003)." What we must have to do is weigh the issues and do more research before we adopt and implement biometrics on the enterprise level.

I agree with the EFF regarding taken a minimalist approach until we know more about the overall impacts of biometric systems. We should approach the use of all technology that will involve the storage and access of individuals bio-data and other personal data to make critical business decisions with caution even we become share the belief with EFF that biometrics may enhance the current technological security infrastructures thus they should be deployed in parallel to established systems.

We have to remember that the nature of decisions to be made based upon the information in these type of database systems is critical not only to the businesses that implement such systems, but also to the lives of the citizens who may suffer the greatest impact if something were to go wrong.

Reference Article or Link:
http://www.eff.org/wp/biometrics-whos-watching-you