Reply to post: A majority of response are missing the broader Privacy implications of using Biometrics..

UK taxman has amassed voice profiles of 5.1 million taxpayers

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

A majority of response are missing the broader Privacy implications of using Biometrics..

Biometric profiles (of any kind) are regarded as personal data IE used to identify an individual – that is the easy bit over! The global wave of privacy concerns may be the 'Achilles heel' of the ‘convenience’ story proposed by the Biometric movement.

Early experiments with citizen ID systems (too many to mention) did not have quite so many problems as the potential benefits outweighed any downside IE registration and clunky authentication. Now that Biometrics are being deployed to reduce friction of authentication, we are seeing real problems as the persistence of Biometric profiles is mutually exclusive with Privacy!

India has Aadhaar, one of the world’s largest national ID systems is beset with verification problems when using biometrics, recently a process to register with mobile network operators with biometrics was suspended because of ‘Biometric Phishing’!

Privacy concerns are going to be a big issue whenever Biometrics are deployed, the inevitable standardization governing profile (3 – 5 year’s time) will only make things worse, once a Biometric profile is on the dark web, it is gone for life as a reliable credential.

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