Biometrics: Freedom Stolen By Security

America is the land of bravery and freedom. Americans bravely fought through the American Revolution to gain freedom and independence from England. This nation is looked at as powerful, brave, free, independent, and above all else, unique. However, in recent days, America has tried to make her nation more secure. Security is, “freedom from risk or danger” (American Heritage Dictionary). Ironically, in America, there has been a huge debate over whether or not security is taking away our freedom. One instance of security verses freedom is about the recent legislation regarding driver’s licenses incorporating biometric technology. Biometrics is “the statistical study of biological phenomena” (American Heritage Dictionary) or more commonly known as “a technology that screens human physical features such as fingerprints and eyes to identify people ( Buckler). The Driver’s License Modernization Act of 2002 ( Matthews) proposes using biometric technology on your driver’s license to identify a person and even keep tabs on them. The use of biometrics in drivers licenses to allow the government to know our every move is a direct violation of privacy and is not worth giving u

Biometrics provides a trust issue with authorities who have access to records. For instance, a person hears a siren going off, they slowly pull to the side of the road. The policeman approaches the car and asks for their smart card. The policeman runs the cards and writes a ticket. A few days later, while checking their credit card account the person realizes the same day they were pulled over $200 was charged to their account using their credit card number online. Was the policeman who pulled them over a crook? Or did they simply misplace the money? How would a person ever know who was using their ATM number? Jay Maxwell, American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators executive director states, “A dual-use card can create a problem” (Divis). If America switched to the smart card system, it would give many people on a national and local level access to your personal information. If we can not trust policemen to accurately display the speed at which your car was traveling when they clocked you, should we trust them with our personal ATM number and other personal information? The truth is that we can not and while “such a problem would only impact the worst drivers” (Divis), this problem greatly affects the whole nation. The smart card will bring more fear in many people minds than security.

Some in the biometrics business sought to exploit the terrorist attacks by claiming that if there had been a national identification system using biometrics -- if for instance everybody’s eyes were checked against a national database of retina scans at airport security -- the hijackings wouldn’t have happened. . . This isn’t true. Most of the hijackers were unknown to the authorities, so no identification system would have stopped them. Besides, bio

Some topics in this essay:
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