“To identify” is a transitive verb. Correspondingly, the activity of identifying is relational: A identifies B, or, in the present case, Abiometrically identifies B. The question then, is what in this particular relational structure demeans B?

Standard means of gathering biometric data include: fingerprinting, facial scans, iris scans, voice recognition, hand vein recognition, gait analysis, keystroke pattern, and so on. Some of these means, it should be noted, are—if not inherently demeaning—at least conventionally associated with negative connotations. Fingerprinting is a clear example, being primarily associated with criminality (at least in some cultural areas). Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to suppose that most other biometrics—indeed the domain in general—are largely bound up in the popular imagination with criminality and crime detection. This is witnessed by the popularity of television shows centering on forensic pathology and criminology (e.g., CSI in the United States, or Silent Witness in the United Kingdom); while historically speaking, the associations trace back to the pioneers of anthropometrics such as Francis Galton (1822–1911) in the United Kingdom and Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914) in France.³

In this respect, biometrics has something of an image problem. The problem is only deepened by high-profile examples in which biometrics plays a role—though it should be noted, for this is indicative of the extent of the image problem, that in many of these cases biometrics is incidental to the story.⁴ In a well-known case, Italian philosopher Georgio Agamben refused to enter the United States in protest at the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator (US-VISIT) program’s requirement for visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed (Agamben, 2008). In other cases too, U.S. immigration officials have been accused of heavy-handedness. In May 2011, 2000 elderly cruise passengers were fingerprinted and had retina scans during a 7-hour security check (Bloxham & Bingham, 2011); while Amir Khan, boxing’s IBF and WBA World Light Welterweight Champion, has complained of profiling and extensive security checks upon entering and re-entering the United States (Davies, 2011). Similarly, the use of biometrics was reported in connection with the recent controversy concerning the French government and the Roma community (Fraser, 2010). The biometrics connection was that the French authorities recorded biometric details of Roma migrants prior to repatriation. However, the primary newsworthy issue was not the use of biometrics but the alleged profiling of Roma communities, in apparent contravention of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights (BBC News, 2010a).

In only one of these cases (Agamben’s) is there any real suggestion that biometric technologies are themselves inherently demeaning. What is demeaning in the other cases is the way in which individuals are treated by the authorities. In the Agamben case, it is claimed that the gathering of biometric data is a form of bio-political tattooing, akin to the tattooing of Jews during the Holocaust. The implications of that association, if sound, are of course horrific. However, it is not entirely clear what Agamben’s argument really is. We will be brief as this is not the place (and even if it were, we have not the space) for detailed discussion. The difficulty is this. Agamben writes:

The problem [. . .] concerns the juridical-political status (it would be simpler, perhaps, to say bio-political) of citizens of the so-called democratic states where we live. [. . .] There has been an attempt the last few years to convince us to accept as the humane and normal dimensions of our existence, practices of control that had always been properly considered inhumane and exceptional. (2008, p. 201)

However, in and of itself, biometric identification is not obviously inhumane or exceptional. At root, biometric identification is nothing more than the identification of an individual by way of their physical or behavioral traits. This is something that we all do every day in normal interactions with our fellows. Here Agamben would probably argue that the body features that we use in everyday life to identify our fellows are biographical signs, embodied languages, “hot” media, which tell the biography of the subject. This is the case with human faces, body gestures, voices, odors, even wrinkles and scars, which are signatures of time on our skin. Biometrics are instead artificial signatures mechanically extracted from our bodies by impersonal technologies. They are “cool” media, which speak of our biology rather than our biography, so depersonalizing the subject. Biometrics—or so Agamben would argue—turn the persona into a bare body that becomessoma, as per the original meaning of this word in ancient Greek (roughly: corpse). However, Agamben would be wrong in two respects. First, the current trend in biometrics is to use more and more “hot” bodily features like face dynamics, gestures, behavioral traits, and so on. Second, the very notion of “bare body” is misleading. Human bodies are never pure bodies, they are always languages that tell stories: even the more remote physical features, even DNA, tell us much more than biological details, as is well illustrated by the huge amount of personal and medical information that can be elicited by any biometric signature (Mordini & Massari, 2008). Hence, it would seem that biometric identification is only inherently demeaning if normal interpersonal relationships are inherently demeaning—and while interpersonal relations can be demeaning, in the vast majority of cases, they are quite the opposite.

There is certainly some truth in what Agamben says, although we would suggest that he has mislocated it. As he says, this is a problem of juridical-political status—of bio-power relations; however, the core problem is not of biometrics. We can explore this by considering a response one might offer on behalf of the anti-biometrics camp. The analogy between identification in the sphere of interpersonal relationships and biometric identification is, the response goes, fundamentally flawed. True, normal interpersonal relationships are not demeaning, but then again one’s relationship to biometric identification devices—say, fingerprint scanners—is not interpersonal: fingerprint scanners are not persons, and our relations to them are not analogous to our relations to people. This is an important point with which we entirely agree.

Notice however that it does not support Agamben’s position. Agamben evokes Foucault, alluding to “a new bio-political era” (Agamben, 2008, p. 201). Foucault had articulated biopower as a “set of mechanisms through which the basic biological features of the human species became the object of a political strategy, of a general strategy of power” (Foucault, 2009, p. 1). However, he also pointed out that his analysis of the mechanisms of power involved, inter alia, investigating “between whom” (Foucault, 2009, p. 2) power is applied—that is to say (although Foucault may not have put it this way) that the power relations here are, in the final analysis, personal.⁵ So what is objectionable about U.S. immigration procedure is not, pace Agamben, the use of biometrics per se; rather, it is the way that they are deployed as an arbiter and medium of interpersonal relations.

Just as it would be wrong to suppose that biometric identification is in itself demeaning, so it would be wrong to suppose that biometric identification systems are inevitably geared toward surveillance. Or rather, it would be wrong to suppose that they are any more inevitably geared toward surveillance than are other forms of identification (any means of identification—biometrics, passports, proper names—can be used to keep track of an individual). However, the concerns regarding surveillance are perhaps more tangible than those discussed above, for the signs of surveillance are, in a physical sense, all around us.

The iconic technology of the surveillance society is probably the closed-circuit TV camera. Popular statistical folklore has it that there is one CCTV camera for every 14 British citizens and that the average Briton is caught on CCTV 300 times a day.⁶ In combination with CCTV, biometric identification technologies open the door to an enormous potential for surveillance. Facial recognition technology is the obvious candidate here, although recent work on identification by gait pattern has great potential too. As surveillance—spurred mainly by developments in biometrics—becomes increasingly automated, it inevitably becomes less and less focused. That is to say, we are not now dealing solely with the surveillance of antecedently identified suspects, but with the mass surveillance of society with the aim of identifying the suspicious among us. As an illustration of the dangers here, consider the use of search warrants. If authorities wish to search someone’s property, they need a warrant, which will, if all is working well, be issued only if sufficient evidentiary justification of reasonable suspicion can be produced. However, compare the surveillance of the 2001 Super Bowl. This measure identified, from a crowd of 100,000, just 19 individuals with criminal records. To have a criminal record is not a crime. And in a civilized country, to have a criminal record could not be considered sufficient evidentiary justification of reasonable suspicion that one might commit some (unspecified) crime. There is, it would seem, cause for concern here.

In the West, the United Kingdom and the United States have particularly poor records in this regard. In 2007, Privacy International rated the United Kingdom the worst performing European Union (EU) state in terms of privacy protection and surveillance, categorizing it alongside the United States, China, and Russia as “endemic surveillance societies” (Privacy International, 2007). The dangers have not gone unrecognized. In its response to the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Committee’s report, “A Surveillance Society” (Home Affairs Committee, 2008), the UK Government articulated a number of commitments to increase data minimization and protection and to ensure balance, responsibility, and transparency in the employment of surveillance technologies (Secretary of State for the Home Department, 2008). This was a welcome pronouncement in the light of Privacy International’s findings. (By 2010, the United Kingdom’s ranking had been downgraded from “endemic” to merely “extensive” surveillance [Privacy International, 2010]. This is better but still not good.)

Orwellian fears of all-pervasive surveillance are exacerbated by a number of factors. As mentioned above, developments in biometric technologies mean that identification can increasingly take place at a distance, via gait, for example (BBC News, 2010b). Second, biometrics and surveillance are increasingly commercial domains and, through public–private interaction, this can give rise to the impression that responsibility for good practice is passed from directly elected, and hence accountable, public officials, to businessmen and executives, whose primary goals are not best practice but profit, and whose responsibilities are to shareholders first, citizens second. (Note that this is not an objection to commercialization or the private sector in general; we merely note that different structures of accountability apply in the public and private sectors.) A further concern is with the speed with which new surveillance technologies are implemented—the worry being that insufficient consultation takes place. Examples include the case of the Visionics Corporation, which offered their facial recognition systems to the Tampa Police Department for a year free of charge “in an effort to build a market among municipalities,” prompting the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida to comment that “This is yet another example of technology outpacing the protection of people’s civil liberties” (Canedy, 2001). While in the United Kingdom, biometrics and CCTV in schools have been a cause of consternation. The Guardian, to give just one example, recently carried a story reporting various problematic cases of CCTV in schools (not only in classrooms but also in the bathrooms). A teachers’ union officer is reported to have commented: “There are lots of schools that install CCTV and don’t know the rules—and the companies who supply it don’t feel the need to tell them” (Harris, 2011).

Whatever may be the facts of the cases mentioned above, the fears are real. And the retort that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear does not hold water. Privacy, secrecy, and freedom from surveillance have no necessary connection with shame or wrongdoing (Bok, 1989). Moreover, as the example of Brandon Mayfield (who was wrongly connected to the 2004 Madrid bombings on the basis of a false-positive fingerprint match) attests, it may well happen that you have nothing to hide but everything to fear; Mayfield was arrested, imprisoned, and claims to have been threatened with the death penalty. Eventually the U.S. government agreed to compensate him to the tune of $2 million (Eggen, 2006).

Fears of a surveillance society are not, then, unjustified. However, to reiterate, as with the objection in section (i), there is no necessaryconnection between biometrics and surveillance. The anti-biometrics camp is, we argue, misguided. Their position is vulnerable to two telling objections. First, in practical terms, their proposal is extremely unrealistic. The biometrics industry is well established: it has gained much support at governmental level (if not at public level), and although the technology is not flawless, it is advancing rapidly and appears to be the most likely candidate for a global identification system in the digital age. Second, the anti-biometrics camp misconstrues the conceptual link between biometrics and the potential undesirable consequences (individuals being demeaned and subject to surveillance) mentioned above. The source of the trouble is not, we will claim, biometric identification systems themselves but the way in which they are implemented.