Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, biometric facial recognition has become a hot topic in many news articles and websites. This paper will focus on the many privacy issues that privacy advocates have with biometrics and facial recognition systems; both positive and negative. We will also take a look at some earlier and current uses of facial recognition systems. Finally, we will conclude with a recommendation, as to how these privacy issues can be resolved.

Biometrics is the use of individual’s physical or behavioral characteristics to uniquely identify them for authentication or identifications purposes. Types of biometrics include: fingerprints, hand geometry, retina and iris patterns, facial recognition, signature, voice, and keystroke patterns. This method of identification is preferred over traditional methods involving passwords and Pin numbers for various reason: (1) the person to be identified is required to be physically present at the point-of identification; (2) identification based on biometric techniques obviates the need to remember a password or carry a token. With the increased use

The first response by Federal Government to the many concerns about their power to use and misuse personal information was the Privacy Act of 1974. This Act covers federal databases and is based on the Code of Fair Information practices. In 1977, a Privacy Protection Study Commission rejected the idea of having a similar privacy law for the private sector. This means that individual’s privacy with respect to databases of information stored and maintained by private organizations is not protected. In the private sector, total reliance is on the fair information practice codes. This is a very serious problem.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee a right to privacy. Privacy of personal data has traditionally been protected in to ways: through self-regulatory codes and through laws. Privacy law and policy in the United States has been derived from a code of fair information practices developed in 1973 by the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare. This code is “an organized set of values and standards about personal information defining the rights of record subjects and the responsibilities of record keepers.

Evaluating facial recognition systems is very application-specific. Results from an analysis for a specific application are usually not correct for other applications. Evaluating the technology properly is a difficult task for those that have worked in the field for several years, and is even more difficult for those new to the field.

The first step to solving this problem is for the public and private sector to collaborate to ensure that there are legal prohibitions against the selling or exchanging of biometric identification databases to third parties. Second, that there is legislation to ensure that electronic storage of biometric identifiers be carried out in the same manner as companies’ confidential information. Third, that there are legal prohibitions against the use of people’s biometric characteristics for identification purposes without consent. And fourth, that there are legal prohibitions against using biometric identifies for discriminatory purposes either by law enforcement agencies or the private sector.

In March of 199, the International Biometric Industry Association (IBIA) announced a set of principles to protect personal information collected by biometrics authentication systems. In this announcement, the IBIA stressed that it very concerned with the issues of privacy and personal information use. The principles they proposed as guidelines to manufacturers, integrators, customers and users are:

Computer users judge the guarantee of privacy as an essential requirement of any digital environment. Privacy is a basic expectation in networked environments from the user’s standpoint. When I say privacy, I mean that people want to be able to draw a boundary circle around themselves, information about themselves, and how they behave. They feel entitled to the ability to control all that falls in the interior of this circle, and they want to be able to regulate how, to whom, and for what reasons the information within the circle is circulated.

Some topics in this essay:
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