News Release

September 17, 2002

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New Study Skeptical About Government Use of Biometric Technologies
Private use could be beneficial if kept separate from government-mandated data collection

WASHINGTON -- Biometric technologies that can automatically recognize a person based on physiological characteristics such as fingerprints, hand geometry, retina, or voice, will soon benefit Americans, according to a new study from the Cato Institute. But the report also warns that in the hands of government, the same technologies have a great potential for misuse and abuse.

In "Human Bar Code: Monitoring Biometric Technologies in a Free Society," Cato's Director of Technology Policy Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. explains that the benefits of biometrics will include identity theft prevention, quicker access to medical information, and even the location of lost children. However, the involuntary use of the technology is dangerous, says Crews. "The most pressing threat to liberty is an all-inclusive database mandated by government, corresponding to a National Identification card with biometric identifiers," he writes.

Voluntary use of biometric technologies -- from which consumers could opt out -- will be beneficial as long as private industry generates its own information, Crews says. "Political liberty is threatened by involuntary, government mandated databases, but not by private applications if government and private data are kept separate," he reports. "To keep government-mandated and market-developed databases separate over the coming years, one principle might be that private companies not be permitted to access data that are collected owing to a government mandate."

But Crews also warns that coerced data collection is dangerous in itself. "Governmental mandates that require individuals to submit to inclusion in databases can give the entire biometrics industry a black eye and turn society against the technology, sacrificing the promise that biometrics can offer," Crews says.

Government use of biometrics and a national ID would lead to many new checkpoints where none exist today, Crews notes. "Everyone would be included in a database thanks to a government mandate, and would be eventually trackable anywhere," he writes. "That capability would lead even private entities to ask for ID everywhere; the Cineplex, the concert, the stadium, Disneyland, and so on."

"Governments should not force citizens to submit to biometric identification, which rules out national ID cards," Crews says. "Governments also must recognize that Fourth Amendment protections will apply in the biometric age, which rules out using public surveillance systems to deliberately identify and track individuals without the authority of a court order."

"Human Bar Code: Monitoring Biometric Technologies in a Free Society"