[Reader-list] A piece of advice: Put your money in biometrics! $$$!

[Rana Dasgupta]

It's always interesting to watch how new technologies
of society or industry fight for legitimacy under the
various rubrics of 'progress' (safety, convenience,
etc), sometimes successfully, sometimes not so.

The genetically-modified food industry, while
presenting its new products as merely the next stage
in an age-old history of selection and breeding, has
still not managed to achieve such legitimacy in much
of the world.  Food is one domain in which people wish
their connection to the natural not to be broken, and
though the concept of "the natural" may have been been
stretched very far, genetically-modified foods still
seem to lie outside it for many people.  BSE,
foot-and-mouth disease and over-rapid developments in
other areas of biotechnology have all served to ruin
the GMO people's PR exercise that aimed to show that
the influence of science on food is unquestionably
benign.

Another area where this fight for legitimacy is going
on is in the area of biometric systems, and here
current affairs have given a massive boost to the PR
campaign.  Since September 11th the companies
operating in this sector have been all over CNN and
CNBC and analysts have been multiplying their
forecasts for the size of the industry by 10 times. 
At the moment the biometric industry is small, and
analysts' reports have for the most part voiced
concerns about its future in the light of public
resistance to its products.  But as a recent CNN
report said, their prospects have brightened:

"Biometric companies, which sell devices that
authenticate individuals by scanning unique
identifiers such as fingerprints or retinas, are also
expected to do well. The uphill public-relations
battle that before Sept. 11 afflicted such outfits as
Visionics (VSNX ), which makes controversial
facial-recognition software, is easing. Visionics
stock has skyrocketed nearly 150% since Sept. 11. But
while the upside for this industry is huge, the dollar
figures remain small. By 2006, the entire sector is
expected to deliver sales of $520 million, according
to Cahner's In-Stat. The key will be selling large
orders to government agencies and transport hubs such
as airports and train stations." 

(I saw a CNN report on the industry last Thursday
which gave 2006 sales estimates of several billion
dollars.)

The Chairman of Visionics, Dr. Joseph J. Atick, an
accomplished scientist himself, said,

"I say this is a paradigm shift in the world of
security, because there is a paradigm shift in the
world of war and terror." 

The three basic areas of innovation are in
fingerprinting scanning, face recognition, and iris
scanning.  Companies like Visionics have also brought
out networking technologies that help companies link
all their scanners and cameras into a central
database.  A recent analyst report:

"Finger biometrics will become the most pervasive of
the biometrics technologies because it's moderately
cheaper ($100 to $300 per unit) than either
face-recognition technology ($125to $400) or iris
scanning ($750 to $1,000), and it's more practical for
small devices like cell phones. Investors interested
in picking up the stock of a company that's quickly
establishing a leadership position in finger
biometrics should consider Identix, a maker of
hardware and software."

Clearly, encountering such technologies for the first
time will be an anxious experience for most people,
and PR will be crucial.  The International Biometric
Industry Association (IBIA), an industry association
founded in 1998 in Washington DC, aims to assure the
public and the political system of the ethical
commitments of the industry, while also ensuring that
concerns about privacy do not lead to 'rash'
oversights in policy:

"[The growth of the industry] could be severely
constricted ... by misinformation as well as a lack of
public awareness about biometrics. In particular,
concerns about privacy can lead to ill-informed
regulations that unreasonably restrict the use of
biometrics on identity documents, in financial
commerce, benefits administration, and other important
consumer applications. In the absence of common and
clearly articulated industry positions on issues such
as safety, privacy, and standards, governments will
react rashly to uninformed and even unfounded
assertions about the function and use of biometric
technology."

Of course the image of the ultimate object of these
technologies, the violent individual who seems to be
just like everyone else but is not so, is crucial to
the rationale for these technologies, and September
11th has been helpful in spawning all kinds of such
images.  The Visionics website is like a hi-tech De
Chirico world of eery spaces, long shadows and, on the
products page, a pernicious looking woman who is shown
from the perspective of a notional camera and whose
insidious glance is highlighted and transformed in the
graphic into 0s and 1s that flow out towards us -
registered, reassuringly, in the Visionics system
(http://www.visionics.com/techsys/).  

As these companies find the legimacy they need - a
regretful but necessary part of the security and
progress of a modern society - their business will
quickly become just that - business - and the
Orwellian overtones of the technologies will
disappear.  How could one have imagined that a PIN
number was enough to ensure the security of an ATM
card? - ATM machines need face recognition too.  And
then, suddenly - NEW! The PINless ATM card that goes
entirely by face recognition.  Remember all those
times you couldn't remember your PIN?  Now all you
need is you.  We don't treat our customers as a number
- we never forget a face!

Just yesterday Visionics issued a press release
announcing its partnership with "ARINC Incorporated,
the leader in mission-critical communications and
information-processing systems for the aviation
industry" - a partnership in which ARINC will sell
Visionics FaceIt® system as part of all its other
airport systems:

"Michael V. Picco, staff vice president of ARINC
Airport Systems, stated, "Aviation security is a major
area of focus for our systems integration efforts. We
are committed to providing the best solutions to the
myriad of security challenges that the airlines and
airports face today. A key component of these
solutions is facial recognition, and our alliance with
Visionics gives us access not only to the
best-of-breed biometric technology in this area, but
also to a scalable platform on which to deliver it."
The alliance will focus on meeting the broad security
needs of the airline industry, a market segment in
which ARINC is well established. ARINC is owned by a
consortium of leading airlines, aircraft makers and
operators based in the United States and around the
world, including United Airlines, American Airlines,
Boeing, FedEx, British Airways, Lufthansa, and
Raytheon."

The same press release goes on to talk about the way
in which Visionics has joined IATA's "Simplifying
Passenger Travel" initiative, sidestepping public
concern about privacy completely to locate its
technology under the rubric of convenience:

"International Air Transport Association (IATA)
special interest group on simplifying passenger travel
-- called SPT--of which ARINC is also a member. SPT is
a worldwide, forward-looking initiative consisting of
airlines, airports, government authorities, system
integrators, and vendors who recognize that today\'s
airports are not built to handle the massive
throughput of travelers. SPT has outlined the vision
of a future system that takes into account
technological advances that can simplify passenger
travel and make it more secure. As such, facial
recognition is poised to play a major role,
particularly since it has already been endorsed by the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as
the most suitable biometric for air travel."

These skillful maneuverings of a young and still small
company (Visionics only made $30 million in 2000-2001
financial year - it's about a thousandth of the size
of the major aerospace companies) within groups of
vast corporations who have suddenly seen a new role
and future for biometrics are an interesting guide to
the way in which these technologies will become banal
- part of the happy paraphernalia of travel or the
caring solidity of banks.  What role such aggressive
companies can play in affecting the social imagination
- in establishing the threat for which their products
are the solution as an overriding social concern -
remains to be seen.  As does the great number of
incidental uses that will arise from the sudden
availability of this new kind of data.

R 



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