| dana hawkins on Wed, 13 Feb 2002 00:16:02 +0100 (CET) |
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| [Nettime-bold] article on biometrics in this week's magazine |
hope you're doing well. in this week's magazine, i take a close, hard look
at the biometrics industry.
learn about gummy dummies, replay, and bioprivacy, by reading...
"Body of Evidence: Biometrics turns your hand, face, or eye into your badge
of identity":
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020218/tech/18biometrics.htm
(you'll find the actual text below.)
and here's a sidebar on a new type of biometric: "This little light of mine":
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020218/tech/18biometrics.b.htm
(you'll find the actual text below.)
i neglected to send out an email when these stories first appeared...
"Tech v. Terrorists: Every fix has its flaws":
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/articles/011008/security.htm
"Guarding liberties as well as lives":
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/articles/011008/security.b.htm
and, finally, here's the link to my webpage, with dozens of stories in the
areas of workplace, financial, internet, and medical privacy:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/tech/teprivacy.htm
as always, please let me know if you'd like your name removed from this
list. (i detest getting email messages that i don't want--so no hard feelings!)
best,
dana
Science & Technology 2/18/02
Body of Evidence
Biometrics turns your face, hand, or eye
into your badge of identity
BY DANA HAWKINS
'Please-move-forward . . . a- lit-tle," a robotic yet
oddly sultry
female voice commands. A camera whirs to focus on the
eyeball of a visitor to Thales Fund Management, on the 45th
floor of an ebony tower in Lower Manhattan. "We-are- sorry.
You-are-NOT-identified," says the disembodied voice. "We
like the Star Trek feel," grins Laurel Galgano, who manages
the automated security system. "And it impresses the
investors."
They're not the only ones taken with biometrics. Iris
scanners are among the sexiest of these technologies,
which convert distinctive biological characteristics,
such as the patterns of the iris or fingertip or the shape
of a hand or face, into a badge of identity. Even before
the September 11 terrorist attacks, the industry was
growing sharply as scanners and software became
cheaper and more accurate. The International Biometric
Industry Association estimates that sales reached
$170 million in 2001, a 70 percent jump over the previous
year. Now, the IBIA predicts that sales will rise to $1
billion by
2004, propelled in part by new security worries at airports
and other critical facilities.
Thousands of systems are being tested or are already up
and running. Employees at some businesses punch in and
out by placing their hand on a reader, and digital
finger-scan
devices verify thousands of schoolchildren's enrollment in
lunch programs. At a handful of airports, face scanners are
scrutinizing passengers, and the New York State lottery uses
iris scanners for employee access to a secured room
containing its data system.
Nothing's perfect. Yet biometrics experts and even some
vendors worry about promising too much, too soon. In theory,
when your fingerprint or face structure becomes your
identity
card, you no longer have to worry that it will be lost or
stolen–nor does an employer, a government agency, or
anyone else with a stake in knowing who you are. But
biometrics systems, like traditional ID cards, can be
fooled,
and some, like hand and face scans, are less accurate in
practice than in theory. "The people who say biometrics
provides foolproof, fail-safe, positive identification
are just
wrong," says Jim Wayman, director of biometric research at
San Jose State University. What's more, face scanning can
be done without people's permission, raising privacy
concerns and prompting calls for laws that would regulate
how biometric data could be collected and used.
Some biometric systems have been a hit, providing a real
boost in security and convenience. At a Gristedes grocery
store in Manhattan, a hand reader has replaced the time
clock. "You can't cheat the boss, and he can't accuse you of
buddy punching," says a store clerk. It takes just
minutes for
New York State to enroll an applicant for public
assistance in
a digital fingerprint system, which has boosted arrests for
attempted fraud. To allay privacy concerns, legislation
prohibits the state from sharing the data with the FBI
unless it
is subpoenaed. And travelers laud INSPASS. The program
allows over 65,000 passengers who regularly fly abroad to
breeze by immigration lines at nearly a dozen airports by
passing through a hand-scan reader, linked to a database of
known travelers. There's an appealing backup system, too.
When a hand reader fails, the passenger gets to cut to the
front of the customs line.
But the technology has glitches. Digital fingerprint readers
can draw a blank on some people, such as hairdressers who
work with harsh chemicals, and the elderly, whose prints may
be worn. Recent tests by the independent research and
consulting firm International Biometric Group showed that
some systems are unable to collect a finger scan from up to
12 percent of users. And the IBG found that the performance
of face-scanning systems can be dismal. Six weeks after
test subjects had "enrolled" with an initial face scan, some
systems failed to recognize them nearly one third of the
time–and that was under ideal conditions. The companies
say they've since upgraded their software.
Yet an increasing number of airports, including Boston's
Logan, Fresno, St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Palm Beach, and
Dallas-Fort Worth, are testing or deploying the face-scan
technology–in some cases at security checkpoints but also
for covert crowd scanning. The systems compare passing
faces against a database of images from FBI lists of
suspected terrorists and wanted felons. Independent privacy
and security expert Richard M. Smith, who has studied these
systems, says that because they are so easily fooled by
changes in lighting, viewing angle, or sunglasses, they
serve
merely as a deterrent. "The camera in the ceiling is
like the
man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. It's all for
show,"
says Smith. "Crowd scanning can be problematic," says
Tom Colatosti, CEO of Viisage Technology, a face-scan
company. "If you're talking about an airport, you need a
chokepoint" for scanning people one by one.
Gummy dummies. Many systems can be deliberately
fooled. A new study from Yokohama National University in
Japan shows that phony fingers concocted from gelatin,
called "gummy dummies," easily trick fingerprint systems.
Manufacturers of some systems claim to guard against such
tactics by recording pupil dilation, blood flow in
fingers, and
other evidence that the biometric sample is "live." And
although some makers assert that biometrics solves the
problem of identity theft–no one can steal your iris or
hand,
after all–many experts disagree. A hacker who broke into a
poorly designed system might be able to steal other people's
digital biometric templates and use them to access secure
networks. This trick, called "replay," could take
identity theft
to a whole new level. "Your fingerprint is uniquely yours,
forever. If it's compromised, you can't get a new one," says
Jackie Fenn, a technology analyst at the Gartner Group.
Privacy concerns–although they seem less pressing to many
these days–may also slow public acceptance of the
technology. Yet in some cases, biometrics can actually
enhance privacy. A finger-scan system for controlling access
to medical records, for example, would also collect an audit
trail of people who viewed the data. But face scanning, with
its potential for identifying people without their
knowledge,
has alarmed privacy advocates.
Last month, for example, Visionics Corp.'s face-scanning
system was redeployed as an anticrime measure in a
Tampa, Fla., entertainment district. Detective Bill Todd
says
the system had been taken down two months into its
12-month trial because of a bug in the operating system, but
it has been upgraded and is now back in use. The
36-camera system is controlled by an officer at the station,
who can pan, tilt, and zoom the cameras to scan faces in the
crowd so that the software can compare them with faces in a
database.
While Todd says the database contains only photographs of
wanted felons, runaways, and sexual predators, police
department policy allows anyone who has a criminal record
or might provide "valuable intelligence," such as gang
members, to be included. So far, according to a report
by the
American Civil Liberties Union, the technology has produced
many false matches. And Todd confirms that it hasn't
identified any criminals. "We have our limitations," says
Frances Zelazny, spokesperson for Visionics. "It's an
enhancement to law enforcement, not a replacement."
At times, the privacy problem is more perception than
reality.
The Lower Merion school district near Philadelphia had
installed finger-scan devices for school lunch lines.
Students
would place their finger on a pad to verify their
identity, and
money would be deducted from their account. The optional
program was instituted to make lines move faster, and to
spare embarrassment to students entitled to free or
discounted meals. But even though the system did not
capture a full fingerprint image, but rather a stripped-down
digital version, some parents felt that it came
uncomfortably
close to traditional fingerprinting. After a spate of
bad press,
the program was killed last year. Forty other school
districts
still use the system.
Bioprivacy. Such privacy dust-ups are causing some
biometrics experts and vendors to call for laws to
govern the
fledgling industry. Samir Nanavati, a partner at IBG,
says his
company stresses "bioprivacy" rules: Tell people what data
you're collecting and why; minimize the amount gathered;
use the data only for the purpose originally stated; and
give
users a chance to correct their records.
Nanavati also worries that the technology is not always used
to best advantage. On a recent, informal tour of biometric
installations in Manhattan, where the dapper consultant
lives,
it was easy to see what he meant. At a New York University
dorm, the hand-scan access system seemed to offer little
security benefit. Fewer than half the students used it. The
others gained entry the old-fashioned way, slightly
faster and
a lot less secure–by casually flashing an ID card to the
friendly security guard. And at New York-Presbyterian
Hospital, where long queues sometimes form at hand-scan
readers, frustrated employees smashed machines two
weeks in a row last month. Yet Joe Salerno of New
York-Presbyterian says every building has a hand reader. He
speculates that employees may be upset about the rigorous
timekeeping.
The real trick, says Nanavati, is to choose the right
biometric
system and design it with both security and convenience in
mind. And sometimes that means no system. One client,
who desired the cachet of owning the most secure, high-tech
residence on Manhattan, hired IBG to set up an iris-reader
system for tenants of his 24-hour doorman building. "I told
him it was already very secure," Nanavati laughs. "Biometric
access would've only cost money and annoyed people."
Sometimes, Star Trek just isn't the answer.
Science & Technology 2/18/02
NEW MEASURES
This little light of mine
BY DANA HAWKINS
What makes you unique? Is it the ridges beneath your
fingernails, the creaking of your bones, the shape of your
ears, your very own odor? The biometric frontier, where
researchers are looking for new and better markers, is not
exactly the stuff of poetry.
Except, perhaps, for a little silver device called a
light print
sensor. Among the most promising of the new approaches, it
works by measuring the play of many-colored light through
your skin. Skin layer thicknesses, capillaries, and other
structures all affect the light, creating a distinctive
pattern of
changes. The system works on any skin surface and is
unaffected by cuts, burns, and dirt. Only about 500 people
have been tested, but so far each light print has been
unique,
"even identical twins," says Rob Rowe, cofounder of
Lumidigm, the Albuquerque, N.M., company developing the
technology.
Smart gun. By the end of the year, a Lumidigm sensor could
actually be in use. Combined with a hand reader, it would
control access to the University of New Mexico's new
hazardous-biomaterials lab. The sensor has also caught the
eye of engineers at Smith & Wesson, which is working with
Lumidigm to build a "smart gun." A light print sensor
built into
the grip would prevent the gun from being fired except by
authorized users. One challenge now, the gunmaker says, is
to get the sensor to authorize a user in under a second–it
currently takes two. If light prints aren't a flash in
the pan,
embedded sensors could someday say "hands off" to all but
the rightful owner of cellphones, laptops, PDAs, and even
cars.
ENDIT
Dana Hawkins, Senior Editor
U.S. News & World Report
1050 Thomas Jefferson St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
(202) 955-2338, dhawkins@usnews.com
www.usnews.com
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