Biometrics or ... biohazards?

Abstract

IPSE DIXIT Biometrics as an array of deployable technologies presumes an elaborate infrastructure, including underlying science that justifies its claims of detection, classification, identification and authentication of individual human identities; particularly of those who are runaways, illegal immigrants, fugitives, criminals, terrorists, and so on.This will now too often be literally a matter of life and death, both for public and individuals identified.The New Security Paradigm emerges from recognition that old paradigm is not securable because it is without scientific substance and/or proof for most of its claims, and composed of inherently inadequate infrastructure, technology, and implementation. Secure biometric applications can't be built from flawed components---one can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, Irish folk wisdom reminds us. Revolution, not evolution, must be new paradigm.To make this case, I begin with a detailed consideration of the forensic identifier of 20th century, fingerprint identification as practiced in US, UK and other advanced societies, for more than 100 years, and which has in many cases been used to establish with absolute certainty identity of some who have paid with their lives. I will demonstrate that US government has not met its own Supreme Court standards of scientific or technical validity for FBI or any other fingerprint system, despite partially successful legal maneuvering (but nothing of substance) to reinforce this sine qua non of law enforcement.I shall then enumerate by trade-name, when available, significant failures of fingerprint-, iris-, and face-recognition systems, tested this year in Japan and Germany.The paper concludes with comments on bedrock forensic identifier of 21st century, by an expert witness, 1993 Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, and I shall close with a glimpse of Big Picture, dismal state of biometrics and related surveillance technology in society at large.